A Fractured State
by M. L. Hitchcock
Summary: When Rogue is abducted, Remy must race to save her - and himself. NOW BROKEN INTO CHAPTERS! Please r/r
1. Lost

**A FRACTURED STATE ****  
**

  
_Disclaimer: If the X-Men really belonged to me I would be both very happy and very rich. Alas, they do not - I am borrowing them and will return them mostly intact. Sue me not.   
  
A/N: This was initially posted in January of 2001; I'm reposting it in chapters for ease of reading, and I've done some minor editing. Enjoy!  
_  
  
PART ONE  
**Xavier Mansion**   
"I'm not backin' off this time, Remy!"   
  
"Chere, I never said you should!"  
  
"I mean it!"  
  
A crack split the air, followed by a surprised "oof!" Shortly thereafter, a tall form hurtled through the air and crashed down onto the lawn thirty feet away.   
  
"Body check!" Hank McCoy howled gleefully. Gingerly dusting himself off, the victim hauled himself upright just in time to see his opponent gracefully and smugly sink the basketball through the hoop - from mid-court.  
  
"I warned you." Rogue put her fists on her hips and cocked her head at him, grinning. From across the court, Remy hollered, "Ref, that was a foul!"  
  
"The young lady made a perfectly legal move, m'boy. In her defense, she's tolerated your hounding for most of the game - and she did warn you," Hank retorted, balancing his huge blue-furred body on one hand and peering up at the Cajun.  
  
"Aw, whatsa matter, can't handle a girl winnin'?" Rogue teased, sticking out a provocative hip. By this time she had retrieved the ball, and now spun it idly on the tip of one gloved finger.  
  
"No, no," Remy protested as he swiped it off her finger. "I just object to the lack of grace from so beautiful a mademoiselle as you." He pounded down the court, Rogue in hot pursuit. Abruptly she popped in front of him and deftly reacquired the ball. Startled, he almost tripped and had to backpedal to chase her. "You been takin' teleportin' lesson from Monsieur Nightcrawler?"  
  
"Maybe so -" she puffed, going up for a dunk, "Maybe no", she finished as the ball plunked through the hoop. "That, my dear Gambit, is game."  
  
Hank hooted and blasted a short shrill from his whistle as Rogue strutted off the court toward the mansion. Remy hustled to keep up. "You win, girl." He slung an arm around her waist.  
  
"Careful, sugar," Rogue cautioned out of habit. She was wearing a tank top that barely cleared her midriff. He obliged by sticking a thumb through a loop of her jean shorts and letting his hand ride on her hip. "Dat better?" he asked with a twinkle.  
  
Rogue blushed, a little annoyed with his boldness, but a wry smile quirked her mouth nonetheless. "Just tryin' to keep you outta my head - not that it's working."   
  
Pulling her against him, Remy trailed a hand through her hair. "Now why you wanna do a crazy thing like dat?" he murmured. Rogue sighed and gave him a not-quite gentle push away as her face sobered.  
  
"Cut it out, Cajun. I got enough on my mind without addin' you t' the equation." She shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her jean shorts and leaned back against the sun-warmed bricks of the mansion. Immediately, the former thief dropped his bantering tone and took a closer look at her.   
  
"What's eatin' you, chere? You looked like you were enjoyin' the game - why the sudden long face?"   
  
"I don't really wanna talk about it, Rem." She avoided his eyes, staring over his shoulder instead. Gambit took a step back and narrowed his eyes.   
  
"Since when can you not talk t' me? We been over dis, chere. Holdin' out on each other makes fo' bigger problems in the long run." He waited to see if she would rise to the bait, but she only half-shrugged with one shoulder. "Y'know, I been tryin' t' corner you all week, but you kept makin' excuses - trainin' in the Danger Room, wanderin' around the property like you lookin' fo' somethin'. What is it?"  
  
"I don't know. It's just been so - with Scott gone...You're always rushin' back to New Orleans on Guild business...The Prof's out with the Skrull somewhere - " She broke off, unwilling to continue, and he knew she had side-stepped the real issue. Again.  
  
"Listen," he began, "if dis is still about the trial, I -"  
  
That got him a reaction, though not quite what he was expecting. Rogue pushed off the wall and straightened up, her eyes flashing angrily. "No, Remy, it's not about the damn trial! For the umpteenth time, I'm sorry - I was sorry then, I'm sorry now, and I probably will be for the rest of my life! Not everything in my life is about you and that god-awful trial!" Gravel crunching under her feet, she marched up the driveway and headed for a side door, slamming it open.  
  
Remy caught it as it bounced off the wall and closed it carefully. "Hey, what's dat for?" he called, and she stopped. "I asked you what was wrong, and you wouldn't tell me, so I jumped to the wrong conclusion. I'm sorry." It came out a little sharper than he'd intended, and she spun around, her face working.  
  
"I just can't talk to you, sometimes, all right? You can't fix me," she grated out. They stood with locked gazes, his confused and beginning to show some annoyance, hers angry and upset. Someone cleared his throat, and they broke eye-contact.  
  
"Hate to break up your idyllic moment, kids," Hank informed them from overhead with a concerned look, "but Jean wants us to meet in the Conference room. Cerebro's picked up some kind of spatial anomaly." He shot the troubled duo another vaguely worried glance but continued his way across the ceiling and around the corner.   
  
"Furball, didn't you ever learn to walk normally?" Rogue called after him, halfheartedly, breaking the tension.  
  
"My methods of circumlocution is perfectly reasonable!" his retort echoed back.   
  
Rogue started to follow him, but Remy stopped her with a hand on her arm. "We gon' finish dis later, right?"  
  
"Leave it alone, please," she told him, her shoulders tensing again in renewed frustration. Pulling free of his grasp, she strode quickly down the hallway.   
  
  
In the ready room, Nathan Christopher Summers, also known as Cable, sat studying an enormous viewscreen. At his side, a tall redheaded woman leaned over a console, adjusting various controls to sharpen the image taking shape before them. Gradually, the static cleared to reveal a NASA space shuttle in orbit far above the earth. Jean Grey frowned.  
  
"Nathan, I thought there was a problem. The shuttle looks fine." Indeed, the shuttle hung in the darkness of space, floating serenely among satellites and other space junk orbiting far above.  
  
Leaning forward, his face darkening in confusion, he replied, "I don't think Cerebro is malfunctioning, and I'm picking up some odd psi-activity. Don't you feel it?"  
  
Jean closed her eyes and opened a channel, questing outward. In a moment, her eyes snapped open and she nodded. "It's so vague, I don't know what to make of it. I can't even tell if it's an entity or just connected to that area in space."  
  
"Perhaps if you join forces?" Ororo Munroe suggested, looking up from the satellite data she had been studying. With the absence of their mentor, Charles Xavier, on an interstellar quest to aid a group of mutants - _alien _mutants, no less - she had stepped in as reluctant leader of the mutant group known as the X-Men. In the two months since the tragic battle that took the life of their former leader, Cyclops, the team had retreated to their Westchester, New York, base to rest and recover. Some of their number had chosen to take a respite from their duties; those remaining took comfort in the familiarity of the mansion and its grounds. For a brief moment, Ororo had actually believed that the X-Men would be granted a reprieve from the never-ending battles they fought; ruefully, she chided herself at the wishful thinking.   
  
Nathan inclined his head to Jean, and she smiled. "Let's take a look."   
  
A moment later, she felt Nathan's mind merge with hers, and two of the world's most powerful telepaths focused their combined abilities up the five miles or so to the shuttle and that strange buzz of psi-energy very near to it.   
  
Behind them, the rest of the team trickled in. Peter Rasputin and Elisabeth Braddock entered together, coming directly from a work-out in the Danger Room. After them came Logan, who materialized silently from somewhere and pulled up a chair. He turned it around and straddled it absently, intent on the two people in front of him. Above him dangled Hank, having completed his journey via the ceiling. After a moment, he dropped lightly to the ground and ambled over to Ororo. He was asking her a quiet question as Kitty Pryde, the Shadowcat, phased through the rear wall. Storm cocked an eyebrow at her unorthodox entrance, but the younger woman just grinned unrepentantly and moved to Logan's side. Last to arrive was Rogue, followed by an uncharacteristically frowning Remy, who stopped mid-sentence as they entered the room. Rogue stalked over to the conference table and leaned against it, facing Storm and clearly ignoring the Cajun. The silence stretched.  
Suddenly the viewscreen exploded with color, and everyone shot to their feet. Where moments before there had existed only a starry background, a huge chunk of asteroid burst into existence that dwarfed the shuttle. Obviously distressed, the shuttle tried to move away from the rock, but it received a glancing blow that sent it tumbling slowly away from earth.  
  
"They're hit" Jean yelped, opening her eyes. "Their guidance system has been damaged, and they're leaking oxygen."  
  
"I know -" Nathan broke off and turned to Ororo. "We're going to need a retrieval team to get to that shuttle, Storm. There's no way they'll be able to land."  
  
The windrider turned to Hank, asking, "Have you finished with the repairs to the Blackbird?"  
  
Already nodding, he replied, "And checked out this morning. We're ready to run."   
  
Storm faced the rest of the team. "Rogue, take Psylocke, Cable, Beast, and Shadowcat - speed is of the essence." Rogue started in surprise at the sound of her name. While she had been an integral part of the X-Men for years, she had never held a field command. Normally that position fell to Scott - but Scott was no longer here. Rogue swallowed against a sudden lump and drew herself up straight. She smiled and gave a brisk nod to Ororo, who continued, "What's your launch time?"  
  
"Ten minutes," Hank told her and looked at Rogue for instructions.  
  
"Okay, people, let's suit up," she ordered and led the way out of the room double-time. Unnoticed, Remy slipped out after them.  
  
Storm turned to address the rest. "We're going to alert status. For the moment, we'll treat this asteroid as a variable - as such, Wolverine, please monitor its movement. Colossus, contact Dr. Keystone at NASA and offer him our assistance - I hope he'll be able to hold off the military from launching a counter-attack."  
  
"You think it was deliberate?" Logan asked from his satellite relay station.   
  
Jean, settling herself into a command chair, answered, "I don't know." She lifted a specially designed helmet that interfaced directly with their super-computer, Cerebro, and fitted it carefully over her head, adjusting sensory inputs at her temporal lobes and cerebellum. "I'm not getting anything like malice from it," she continued. "Of course, I'm not getting much of anything, period. Just - excuse the inadvertent pun - an alien feeling. A disturbance."  
  
Peter spoke up from the communications board. "Dr. Keystone is on the line, and he wants to speak with you, Storm."  
  
"Patch it through," she ordered. In a corner of the main viewscreen, a smaller box appeared, containing the tense face of Dr. Mark Keystone, a top official with NASA and sometime acquaintance of Professor Xavier. "Dr. Keystone, my name is Ororo Munroe. I'm a former student of Charles Xavier's. I wished to offer you any assistance necessary."  
  
Keystone squinted into the visual pickup and asked, "Where is Xavier?"  
  
"He has taken a leave of absence at the moment. I stand in his place to offer you assistance," she repeated.   
  
Frowning, Keystone said, "How did you know about our...situation?"  
  
Storm paused, choosing her words carefully. The line was not completely secure, and given the popular feeling towards mutants, she decided to couch her explanation as discreetly as possible. "One of our group picked up some odd energy readings moments ago. We enabled our long range sensors just in time to see the - accident. Have you been able to raise the shuttle?"   
  
Apparently accepting her explanation, the engineer relaxed a bit and sighed, running a hand through greying brown hair. "Their communications array was damaged pretty severely, and they've lost both engines. The Russians are trying to scramble one of their shuttles - we've been caught flat-footed with _Atlantis _and _Columbia_ both under repairs. We can get _Columbia _up in about twenty hours, but I don't know that the crew has that long. For the moment, the military is on alert, but they're not interfering - I convinced the Joint Chiefs that this thing is a natural entity, not controlled with sentience. Privately, I think we both know better."  
  
Nodding agreement, Storm leaned on the edge of the communications board and looked Keystone directly in the eye. "I have a team going up in the Blackbird - they'll be on-site in about an hour and a half. It would be prudent have the Russians stand by, though. In the interests of preserving our anonymity, perhaps you could suggest that the _Columbia_ was able to launch sooner than planned."  
  
"A wise move, Ms. Munroe. I believe I can manage Mission Control on that matter. It is imperative that the crew and their information be retrieved. The crew was conducting a series of highly sensitive experiments, and the information they gathered is essential. If they were unable to download the memory core, I would ask that your team do so. I am transmitting the passcodes to your location - now."  
  
A moment later, the computer screen at Logan's station flashed, and an encryption code scrolled past. He nodded to Storm and she said, "We've got it, Dr. Keystone."  
  
"That is highly classified, and what I just did was blatantly illegal, so please use your utmost discretion. Of course, even talking to _you_ constitutes a threat to national security, given the general political feeling towards mu - you and your friends..." He barked a laugh. "Good luck, Ms. Munroe. Contact me when your team reaches _Discovery._ Keystone out."  
  
Storm flicked another switch. "Blackbird, do you copy?"  
  
Rogue's voice returned instantly. "Blackbird here. Go ahead."  
  
"I'm sending your onboard computer an encryption stream. It contains codes to the shuttle's memory core. NASA has asked that you download as much of the core as possible once the crew has been removed to safety. I don't need to tell you that the information contained in the shuttle's core is sensitive material."  
  
"Yeah, we got it, 'Ro. No peekin'. We're doin' preflight - should be ready to go in a few minutes. Blackbird out."  
  
Peter eyed the trajectory of the asteroid. "There's no danger of that impacting earth, is there?"   
  
At his console, Logan had been trying to determine exactly that. "No - stayin' in some kinda orbit far enough out that it shouldn't interfere with anything. It backed off right after it hit the shuttle, almost like it overshot the planet from wherever it came from."  
  
"You tellin' me dat thing's maneuverable?" Remy asked as he strode back into the room and moved closer to the display. Sure enough, he began to detect tiny spurts of movement whose power source was not immediately clear. They watched as it pulled out of the planet's gravity well, moving as ponderously as a whale.   
  
A ping indicated that the hangar doors were opening, and Rogue buzzed in a moment later. "We're good to go, Storm. Beast's firing up the engines as we speak."  
  
"Your first priority is securing the shuttle - we'll monitor things from here. If that asteroid turns hostile, chances are we'll catch it before you do. Cable?"  
  
The camera switched, and Nathan's face appeared on the screen. "Yes, Ororo?"  
  
"Maintain contact with Jean. Are you linked?" The strange star-burst scar over Cable's right eye flared briefly with blue sparks as he connected with Phoenix, and then both nodded. "We're ready to launch."  
  
"Then clear skies, my friends," Storm wished as the monitor blinked off. The building quivered as the Blackbird's engines came online, and the heavily modified jet shot out of its camouflaged hangar and streaked toward the sky.  
  
  
**Earth: Geosynchronous Orbit  
Space Shuttle _Discovery_   
Two Hours Later**  
  
Rogue sat in the silent shuttle cockpit, vainly battling the failing life-support systems. With one oxygen tank completely depleted and the other going fast, she doubted they would have enough air for a landing sequence. Not that the perforated tiles over a large portion of the ship would allow that anyway; they would burn up if they attempted atmospheric reentry. Two of the astronauts were down for the count, having sustained injuries in the collision with the asteroid; conveniently enough, they were the pilot and the co-pilot. At present, they and everyone else were cooling their collective heels in the Blackbird, waiting to see if the shuttle could be salvaged.  
  
Leaving her, the carefully absorbed knowledge she'd drawn from the injured, and Beast to find a way out of this mess. On top of everything, her near-argument with Remy kept distracting her, making her irritated with the mission in general and him in particular. Damn the man, anyway. Always convinced he had the answers for her problems. How could he solve the problems when he was one of them? Neither one of them was guilt-free in the damage they had inflicted upon each other in the past year, but she had long ago acknowledged that the time had come to move on, and yet he wrapped himself in his guilt, drawing her to him and pushing her away at the same time. Like nothing had changed. But it had. There was love - but not enough trust. _On either of our parts,_ she thought, and then angrily shoved the voice away. Frustrated, she scowled down at the motherboard on her lap.  
  
"Tell me again why we're botherin' with this hunk of junk?" she muttered as she tried yet another bypass of damaged circuitry. Hank didn't pause in his work as he answered her.   
  
"Frankly, my dear, I don't remember. I know they were working on an experiment of some sort up here, but surely they could reacquire that information on another shuttle run-" He broke off as the crippled ship shuddered and those lights still working blinked out.  
  
In an overly-calm voice, Rogue turned to her teammate and asked, "Hank, what did you do?"   
  
"Nothing! It's something else - " He stopped, listening. The queer groan of stressed metal echoed through the cockpit. The two exchanged a look. "Uh, Rogue, where was our visitor the last time you checked?"  
  
"On the other side of the planet."  
  
"How long ago was that?"  
  
"About forty minutes...oh." Together they looked up through the viewport above them. Towering overhead, eclipsing space itself, lurked the asteroid - and from the sounds emanating behind them, it was taking a decided interest in the battered spaceship.  
  
Rogue swallowed hard. "Let me guess - this is where the little green men -"  
  
"Grey," Hank corrected absently.  
  
"Right - the little _grey_ men come on board with their ray guns and say Take me to your leader'."  
  
An explosion of static drew their attention to the radio. Rogue fussed with the frequency, trying to clear the transmission. Finally, they were able to discern Cable's voice.  
  
"...Copy? This is... - bird to _Discov_...do you copy? Rogue?"  
  
She tapped her headset and shouted, "Yes! Yes, we copy. What's going on?"  
  
"That oversized boulder is between the Blackbird and you. Came outta nowhere - right around us. We can't see you - what's going on? Over."   
  
"From the sound of it, I'd say they're trying to dock. Over," Hank returned.  
  
Now Psylocke joined in the conversation. "Come on, kids, it's time to come home."  
  
"Roger that, Bets. Got a question for you, though - how?"  
  
"Do you have any maneuverability? Over." Cable again.  
  
Hank thumbed his mike. "Negative. What do you think we've been trying to fix? If we bail, we're going to have to rely on the MMUs in the hold - if we can get to the hold. And once those run out it's all on our jetpacks."  
  
"We're moving solar east. Location 23.45 by 43.66. It's about 4000 meters off your starboard. Think you can get there? Cable and I can reel you in if you're within about a hundred-fifty meters," Psylocke informed them.   
  
"We'll try. Hank's goin' to check on those MMUs. I'll get back to you in a minute." Rogue released her mike switch and leaned back. Out her window to solar east, the stars glittered sharply, but the Blackbird was swallowed up in the deepness of the solar system. Even on the radar, she could barely see the tiny blip of the Blackbird moving into position. There was an awful lot of empty space between the two ships.   
  
Hank returned, looking unusually grim. "I'm afraid the manned maneuvering units are out of commission. So is most of the hold. That hole in the second compartment was bigger than it looked - it vented everything in it out into space. The collision took care of the hold itself."  
  
"How much fuel do you have in your jetpack?" Rogue asked.  
  
He considered. "I'm at about one-third - enough for a controlled burst and a little maneuvering. You?"  
  
"Less. I did the external surveillance, remember?" Rogue cursed under her breath.  
  
"How about going twinkle-toes on us? Can you fly there?"   
  
She frowned. "Yeah, but it's a lot harder without atmosphere. No surface friction to push against, and almost no directional control. Guess I'll have to push off the shuttle and use my jetpack just for maneuverin'. It'll be slow."  
  
Hank shook his head. "I don't know if we've got that much time. Who knows what's going on in that asteroid and we can't leave you behind. No, we'll just ride double, then."  
  
"Don't be stupid, Hank. There might be enough thrust to get both of us off this scrapheap, but there ain't enough to_ stop_ both of us. There's not even enough to stop _you_."  
  
"That's what Betsy and Cable are for, remember? Telekinetics-Are-Us?"   
  
"That's a lot of mass, Hank. If we're going to fast, they might not be able to stop us. And then there's that little matter of my Kree shielding. They can catch me fine, line-of-sight, but Cable won't be able to get a lock on me otherwise. I'll have to be pretty close before they can get me." She blew out a gusty breath.  
  
Beast growled, "I thought _I_ was supposed to be the scientist. Better hail the Blackbird and see if they can come up with something."  
  
Rogue depressed her mike, "_Discovery_ to Blackbird, do you copy?"  
  
"Roger that. What's the sit?" Cable answered.  
  
"We got a problem. The MMUs are scrapped, and we're both low on fuel. Hank's got more than I do, but not enough for a piggy-back. It'll take a lot longer to get me over - I've only got enough fuel for course correction. We're thinkin' maybe I'll have to try to fly over. Please advise. Over."  
  
"We copy, Rogue. Hang on." Beast and Rogue exchanged a look and hoped silently for a short wait.  
  
"Rogue?"  
  
"What have ya got? Over," Rogue replied.  
  
Cable's voice came back. "We'll just have to take you one at a time. Rogue, set your suit transponder to broadcast, and we'll get a sensor reading to track you. As soon as you're in sight, we'll scoop you up."  
  
"All right, just be ready, guys. _Discovery_ out." Rogue turned to Hank. "You go first. I'll finish the download from the main computer and come after you."  
  
He didn't like it, but couldn't think of a reason to object. "Do you have enough fuel to stay away from the asteroid?"  
  
"Hope so. I'll be slower than you, but you've got most of the info. They need it." She gave him a push. "Go. Do you have the coordinates?"  
  
He tapped his wrist, to which was attached a small computer. "Be careful, Rogue." He sealed his helmet, gave a jaunty salute, and cycled through the airlock. In a moment, she heard a dull clunk as it cycled shut behind him, then watched on an external camera as he accelerated slowly away from the shuttle.   
  
Turning back to the main computer, she let her fingers race across keyboards, attempting to download as much as possible before she made her own journey across the black void. Behind and above her, ominous noises continued to grow, and she wondered how much time she had left.   
  
Suddenly, a siren wailed again as something breached the hull. She slapped on her helmet and sealed it just before a huge rush of air roared out of the cockpit. The suction was incredible. Straining, she grasped the last disk from the computer and shoved it into a pocket before succumbing to the pull. In vain, she grabbed for a handhold, but the rush of venting oxygen swept her out of the cockpit, through a short passage, and spit her out of the gaping wound in the hold's wall. Flailing wildly, she shot through space toward the asteroid, knowing that if she hit, she would be just so much mush buried in the rock.  
  
At that moment, whether through fate or providence, a large piece of machinery slammed into her, causing her both to slow down and to ricochet in an entirely new direction. Granted, it was away from the asteroid, but it was now taking her closer to the atmosphere. If Earth's gravity pulled her in, she would suffer a very hot and very painful death.  
  
She tried to trigger her jetpack, but the collision with the junk had rendered it slag. Spinning out of control, she closed her eyes and began to pray.  
**  
  
Aboard the Blackbird**  
  
"Gotcha Henry," he heard over his mike as his momentum slowed and he felt his uncontrolled drive at the Blackbird change to a gentle, directed path to the airlock. Moments later, he was inside and waiting impatiently for the lock to cycle. The moment it was finished, he bounded through and ran up the passageway to the cockpit. There, he came to a screeching halt. His teammates and the four conscious _Discovery_ crew members were glued to a small computer screen in front of Betsy.   
  
"What's wrong?" he asked, shouldering forward. Logan grunted.   
  
"The shuttle just depressurized completely. We can't get through to Rogue."   
  
On the screen, the strange asteroid dwarfed the tiny shuttle, even under magnification. Junked machinery was spewing from a yawning gash in the side of the ship, and suddenly a spacesuited figure shot into view.  
  
"There she is!" Logan fingered white blur that was Rogue as it caromed towards the asteroid above her. "Betsy!"  
  
"I'm on it," the dark-haired telepath hissed, beads of perspiration dripping from her forehead. "I can't get a lock on her -"  
  
"She's hit!" Hank exclaimed as a chunk of metal spun their friend off on a trajectory straight towards Earth. "Bets-"   
  
The red tattoo over her left eye stood out against Psylocke's pale, strained face.   
"Cable-"  
  
Hank whirled to face the bigger man. Tension knotted Cable's muscles, making the tendons in his neck stand out starkly. Through gritted teeth, he growled, "This shouldn't be so hard! It's that damned Kree shielding."  
  
Outside, the distant speck began to slow and started to curve away from the atmosphere. "You've got her!" Hank crowed.  
  
"No we don't! It's something else -" Psylocke opened her eyes and turned to look at the orbiting rock. "It's coming from there - some kind of tractor beam. It's too strong to break."  
  
The cockpit fell silent as the stunned group watched the speck gather speed and return on a course to the asteroid. A small opening appeared on the surface Rogue was approaching, and almost before they could blink, she vanished into it.   
  
Then the asteroid disappeared.   
**  
  
Westchester, New York  
A day later  
**  
"Remy?" Ororo Monroe leaned over her old friend and shook him gently. He started and pulled away, blinking cobwebs. "Remy, I've brought you something to eat." She placed a tray with a simple meal on the small table next to his chair. He didn't even look at it.  
  
"Thanks 'Ro." Slumping back, he rested his chin on his fist. "Not real hungry just yet."  
  
Ororo straightened and laid a hand on his shoulder. "You must rest. I know your feelings for Rogue, but you're pushing yourself too hard. Wherever she is, we must believe that she is alive and that we will recover her. This endless review of her disappearance is an exercise in frustration."  
  
"Yeah." If possible, he slouched even further down into the old armchair, scowling.   
  
Ororo regarded him steadily for a long moment, noting the tension in his shoulders. "Something else troubles you?"  
  
He looked up, torn from moodiness. The abruptness of the question induced an inadvertent truth out him. "We argued. Again. She was angry." His eyes flicked away in frustration, worry, and - shame?  
  
Sighing quietly, Ororo shook her head slightly. "You need to learn to trust again, Remy, as does Rogue. You're blocking each other."  
  
Remy grunted. Reaching down, she grabbed his chin firmly and forced him to look into her eyes. "There is more to love than words, but they are a first step. If you cannot use them, then you must find a way to show her." A wry smile touched her lips. "For all our sakes."  
  
"I don't know what to do." He rubbed a hand over his stubble, his eyes suddenly tired, and she knew he was referring to more than merely the rescue operation. "I'm tryin', 'Ro. Somethin' just ain't right - and now..." He gestured in frustration at the computer screen before him, the image frozen at the moment a tiny spacesuit was entering a deep shadow on the surface of the asteroid.  
  
Squeezing his shoulder gently, Ororo told him, "Eat, my friend. Strengthen yourself. Then we will find her." She looked down at him for a moment. "We _will_ find her," she repeated softly as she left.  
  
As the door closed, Remy fell back into brooding. What was wrong with them? Things always managed to boil over before he could stop it, and now it may have cost them any chance of ever hashing things out once and for all. With a vicious stab at the keyboard, he unfroze the screen.  
  
In front of him, a computer monitor once again displayed Rogue shooting out of the shuttle and being caught by an invisible force, and then drawn into the asteroid. He slowed the replay to a frame per second, but still could find no indication of the asteroid's power source, or its astonishing "blink" from its position above Earth to...where?  
  
This time, he slowed the sequence even further as the asteroid vanished. The picture streamed so slowly, it was hard to discern movement at all - and then he caught it. A strange flicker began at one of the corners of the monolith and spread so quickly that the camera had caught only a hint of it. It washed over the asteroid; and where it passed, the asteroid vanished.   
  
"Huh." Remy propped his elbows on his knees and replayed the sequence as an idea began to form. After three more viewings, he had enough information to call in reinforcements. Reaching over, he hit a button.  
  
"Beastie, mon frere, I got a question."  
  
Hank responded almost instantly. "May I deduce that you have stumbled upon a clue whilst playing Sherlock?"  
  
"Yup. Listen, what if the ship didn't move at all - what if it had some kind o' cloakin' device or somethin'?"  
  
There was silence at the other end while Hank thought it through. "Well, it had occurred to me, but I think Cerebro would have picked up that kind of anomaly - like the one that alerted us in the first place," he replied at last.  
  
Remy shook his head. "No, man, I think Cerebro only pick it up when it show itself. When we saw it the firs' time in the conf'rence room, I bet it been in dat spot all along. It just showed itself den."  
  
"Yes, but why?" Hank wanted to know.  
  
"How should I know? I ain't got antennae and googly eyes. I'm just wonderin' if maybe we can trick dat thing into showing itself again. Or change our sensors so we can see it." Remy blew out a gust of air in frustration. "I can't keep sittin' here when I don't know what's happenin' to her!"  
  
"All right, let me take a look at whatever it is you see on that tape when I'm through with the Blackbird. And Gambit?" Hank asked.  
  
"Yo?"  
  
"Eat something. That was from Ororo."   
  
Remy thought he heard a low, Storm-like laugh before the transmission cut off. He looked at the tray Ororo had brought him; and suddenly, he felt very hungry indeed. **  
  
  
Earth Orbit   
Asteroid X**  
  
From out here, it did not look merely huge; it was colossal. A few minutes earlier, the Blackbird had commenced a specialized scan of the area, miles above Africa. After reviewing the visuals that outboard cameras had recorded with Gambit, Beast was inspired to reprogram the scanner to look for low frequency emissions of any kind - be it light, heat, or something else entirely. He held a theory that whatever powered the rock, it had to leave some kind of energy signature, and so he and Kitty had duly reconfigured the systems. Moments before, they had struck gold.  
  
Currently, they stared at the fruits of their labor and came to the next question:  
  
"Now what?" Beast asked.  
  
Remy did not answer, studying the floating island of rock in front of them. It loomed. There was no other way to describe it. Hovering slightly off to one side of a jutting projection, Remy fiddled with the sensory inflow Hank was sending to his little skipboat. Roughly the size of an F-14 Tomcat, the small vehicle had been designed along Shi'ar lines, and as such, employed a clever cloaking device of its own to hide its sensory imprint from monitoring satellites.   
  
None of that passed through his mind, though, as he fiddled with the scanner. An ambivalence had settled over him. Watching that tape over and over had only reinforced his anger and helplessness - not at Rogue's abduction, but at her. She was so stubborn, always running off to prove herself to....who? And even after months of a slow healing process, she still had a tendency to hold him at arms' length. Like she didn't trust him.   
  
A small voice in the back of his head admonished him, _You ain't exactly shown her the utmost faith, either, ami. Runnin' off t'do yo' own thing now and then, still apart from the team in more ways den one. _With an irritated grunt, he told his brain to shut up. _Den why you out here? Why not Logan or Ororo, neh? _it came back slyly. _You can fool her, but you can't fool y'self. _With effort, he shoved that niggling voice away and focused on the task at hand.  
  
After hours of reviewing the disc containing Rogue's disappearance, he had programmed his onboard computer with the exact parameters of the section of asteroid that had swallowed her. Now he turned his craft and started a precise scan of the rocky face immediately in front of him.  
  
In a moment, a sensor beeped, and a small viewscreen froze on a section of the asteroid. Remy flicked his com switch. "Cameras jus' picked up a visual match, ami. Run it through your scanners, but I think we just found us a door."  
  
He told the computer to send a tight data stream to the Blackbird, and then leaned forward a little to resume his study of the asteroid. Realistically, they had very little chance of breaching the thing if it did not want to let them in. In a twist of logic, though, Remy figured that if it was interested in lifeforms indigenous to Earth, then why settle for one when you could have two? Of course, he hadn't bothered to inform his teammates of his intentions; Storm and Psylocke would have fits.   
  
It was rash, it was stupid, and yet he sensed that it was probably the one thing that could save her - namely, him. Over the course of his grueling escape from Antarctica and its aftermath, a rudimentary telepathy had manifested and grown. This would have been of no consequence, except that after Rogue and he had begun to repair their mangled relationship, her presence had begun to imprint itself on the telepathic part of his brain. It was a side-effect he attempted to ignore for the most part, since it never did much except flare up the closer in proximity she was to him.   
  
In the past few week, as more walls had crumbled, however, he had noted an increase in the strength of the bond. It confused and frightened him a little - knowing she was about to enter a room seconds before the door opened, feeling her moving in and around him almost all the time. He wondered now if he had been subconsciously pushing her away a bit to get some relief from the odd pressure.   
  
At any rate, he was counting on this tenuous link to help lead him to her.   
  
He didn't fool himself into thinking that he and Rogue had the level of rapport that Scott and Jean had shared, but there was an undeniable tug of Rogue-ness that told him she was in there, somewhere. There was no more time to hatch rescue plans, or tiptoe under the watchful eyes of government spies. In spite of the frustration, in spite of the complex emotions that he was studiously ignoring, in spite of her likely anger that he was the one going after her, he had to reach her. She needed him; he would go.   
  
Through a calculated drift, he had positioned himself exactly in front of an odd shadow to the left of the projection. It gave the impression of a depth much greater than a mere shadow of the protuberance to its right. He rechecked his computer; according the tape, this was the correct spot.   
  
His communicator chimed and Hank's anxious voice filled the cockpit. "Interesting choice of resting spots, my friend. Now, be a good Cajun and come out where we can see you. Your propiniquity to the asteroid has knocked you off our radar." There was a pause, and then, "Gambit?"  
  
Remy toggled off the switch and muttered, "Pardon, frere Bete. Need to do dis' my way." Gritting his teeth, he gripped the joystick tightly and rocketed into the shadow.   
  
Immediately, something gripped his tiny ship - it felt as though a giant hand had taken hold of the fighter and was shaking it like a can of soda. Bright light poured through the forward viewport, which darkened automatically to protect his eyes. Another great jolt slammed into the ship, and Gambit closed his eyes, certain that a quick and very painful death by decompression would shortly follow.   
  
The vibrating ship lurched again and then settled into a quick, steady glide through the shadowed rock and into something else entirely. Before his startled mind could register what he was seeing, a questing beam of green light penetrated the ship's hull and touched his chest, and his last thought was, _I hope she appreciates this_ -  
  
  
**Aboard the Blackbird**  
  
"That does it!" Beast growled. He slammed an enormous furry fist on the console so hard that Psylocke winced. Before their disbelieving gaze, Gambit had deliberately turned his ship into the asteroid. Sensing something was afoot, Psylocke had managed to maneuver the Blackbird so that they could reacquire visual contact just in time to witness the other ship's abduction.   
  
"Easy, mate. We need those instruments to get home," she chided.   
  
"My apologies, Bets - but I am a wee bit put out by our bull-headed Cajun's recent antics. " He growled again, a low animal noise; and for once, Betsy thought he actually did resemble some kind of beast. "Remind me to rend him limb from limb when next we get our hands on him."  
  
The radio beeped for their attention, and Psylocke reached over to acknowledge it. "Blackbird here, over."  
  
"Betsy, please tell me I didn't see what I just saw," Jean returned.  
  
"'Fraid so. He up and went on us."  
  
"My friends, return to base. There's nothing more we can do for them now," Storm cut in.  
  
"Acknowledged. Blackbird out." Psylocke cut the relay and looked at Beast, who returned her gaze silently. With a sigh, she fired up the engines to full throttle and started plotting a landing vector. As the ship moved away from the asteroid, they detected a faint shimmer - and then the asteroid blinked out of existence. Behind them lay only the stars.  



	2. The Girl in the Mirror

**PART TWO  
  
ROGUE  
**  
The first things she heard as she swam up into consciousness were the shouts of children at play. Loud children, evidently playing a game of tag, judging by their raucous calls to each other. Next, the semi-familiar scent of fresh coffee tickled her nose, followed by the sounds of footsteps on a staircase. Shortly thereafter, a hand on her shoulder gently shook her awake.   
  
"Come on, baby girl. Time to get up. Are you going to sleep the day away?" a gentle voice drawled in amusement.   
  
"M'up. Swear. Inna minute" Rogue slurred and tried to pull up the covers.   
  
"Oh no you don't," and now the owner of the voice took hold of her sheets and flung them back. "Out with you! Time to get up!" There followed a distinct chuckle as Rogue shivered in the cool morning air.  
  
Rogue smiled sleepily and raised her head. "Momma!" She blinked. A striking woman in her mid-forties stood beside her bed, hands still on the sheets, and grinning. "Momma," she said again, and a strange sense of wonderment washed over her. Why would having a mother be so strange? The older woman leaned over and started to prod her legs, but Rogue, reacting instinctively, rushed to block contact with her bare leg.   
  
"Momma, no!" she yelped as she felt her mother's hand reach her calf. Squeezing shut her eyes, she waited for an agonizing moment to feelwhat? Cracking an eyelid, she discovered her parent staring at her.   
  
"Rogue, are you all right? Is there something wrong with your leg?" and her mother ran her hand up and down Rogue's calf, looking for signs of an injury. Rogue gaped at her, trying to remember why it would be a bad idea if someone, anyone, touched her bare skin. Nothing had happened, so why the panic attack?  
  
"Sorry – I – I'm not quite awake yet."   
  
Withdrawing her hands, the older woman stood up. "All right. You gave me quite a scare, young lady. Breakfast is waiting for you downstairs. " She gave Rogue a measuring look, a smile, and then she left.   
  
Stretching, Rogue swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. As she started to rise, though, the room swam dizzily before her eyes, and a wave of vertigo swept over her. Grasping hands found a bedpost, and she hung on for dear life until the world heaved and settled down again. She risked opening her eyes, and the room stayed pleasantly still.   
  
A cautious step brought her to her closet, in which hung her favorite school dress – a pretty, slim blue thing that she slipped over her head. Closing the door, however, she paused, looking with vague surprise at the reflection in its full-length mirror.   
  
Looking back at her was a startled girl of half-past sixteen, her long straight chestnut hair pushed behind her ears, and wide green eyes that examined her image curiously. She put a hand up and tugged at her forelock, wondering why she had a crazy vision of it being pure white. Had she been dreaming about a punk band? Turning around, she watched as her reflection followed the movement to reveal a tanned back, arms and legs. Her limbs were at that slightly awkward, fast-growing stage, and she felt a bit clumsy as she tied the dress straps around her neck. It struck her that she felt very bare – as if she was used to being covered from neck to toes for the protection of -  
  
Shaking her head, she reached inside the closet again, withdrew a navy blue cardigan, and pulled it on, clearing her head of the muzziness. Must have had some weird dreams last night, she decided. After throwing the covers into a semblance of order, she clattered downstairs to breakfast.   
  
"Are you all packed, then?" her mother asked as she stood over the stove.   
  
"Yes, Momma. I'm gonna miss you so much" She ran over and wrapped her arms around her mother's waist. "So much movin', and I'll still barely get to see you, cept for holidays."  
  
"Albany is a lot closer than Caldecott, don't you think?" She deftly served up the steaming omelet and handed the plate to Rogue. "Now eat up, and don't worry."  
  
"Yes ma'am," Rogue replied and took the plate to her place at the table. "Still seems a bit crazy, me getting' in to a school like Xavier's." She shoveled in a mouthful of ham and egg. "Guess it'll be a good change. Things weren't great back home," she continued after chewing thoughtfully for a moment.  
  
"Well, in Caldecott they didn't have the educational facilities they've got up here. I would have moved us years ago, but – "  
  
Rogue nodded. "Daddy. Well, at least if we're startin' over, we're doin' it together."   
  
She reached over and squeezed Momma's hand briefly before standing. "Guess I'd better get a move on, huh?"  
  
She scampered up the stairs and took a final look at her room. In one corner stood a plain, iron bedstead laid with a voluminous navy comforter and three fluffy pillows, crowned with her Benji-bear – her best friend since birth. She caught up the careworn toy and held it close for a moment.  
  
"Wish us luck, Benji. We're gonna need it," she whispered before carefully laying him in her open backpack and zipping it shut. Her oversized suitcase in hand, she swung her pack onto her back and strode out of the room with only a little bit of apprehension. Time for a new life, indeed.  
  
As she stepped out into the hall, though, a whisper reached her ears, a sound that she did not immediately identify. She stopped, confused, and listened to the silence of the house. Her mother had gone out to bring the car around, and the place was almost too quiet. Moving forward again, the noise increased and she looked around. This time she plainly heard a voice murmuring.  
  
"Momma? Did you want me?" she called. No reply. Forcing back a shudder, she made to walk again when the vertigo struck once more, only this time its intensity tripled. Nauseous, her vision blurred and whirled around her and she reached out, desperate to catch something that would support her before she fell down and knocked herself out.   
  
Suddenly a hand wrapped around her waist; and, at the touch, the illness fled. Blinking, Rogue coughed and realized she was hunched over a snowdrift. Frightened at her apparent change of location, she reared back and almost knocked her rescuer over with her. He steadied them, and then gave her a little shake.  
  
"Yo, Rogue – you okay?" A boy her age, maybe a year older, held her close to him. He looked at her with more concern than was strictly necessary, and she frowned, trying to place him. She noticed that he had light blue eyes and a freckled nose; she had a memory that he laughed a lot.  
  
Feeling some strength return, she nodded. "Yeah, Bobby – "_(how did I know his name was Bobby?)_ "Just a – a ghost walkin' over my grave." She managed a weak smile, which he returned, full of warmth. Rogue felt herself blushing as he brushed a long strand of hair out her eyes.   
  
"Wanna sit down for a minute?"   
  
"Yeah." He led her over to a stone bench, and she risked a quick glance around. School. She was at school – and the boy sitting next to her with his arm around her was Bobby – her boyfriend, Bobby Drake.   
  
"What happened?" He murmured quietly. She relaxed a little.   
  
"I don't know. I thought I was at home, on moving-day, just before we left, and then – " she looked up at him, frowning a little. Something wasn't right, somehow. She had the impression that Bobby wasn't the person she expected to see, to feel next to her, the heat of his body warming hers in the weak winter sunshine.   
  
"What, you mean last fall?" Bobby asked.  
  
"Yeah – " she frowned. No. Longer than that. "Maybe not. It felt like my first day, sophmore year. And then suddenly I was here and now. This is gonna sound funny, but what day is it?"  
  
Bobby frowned anxiously. "If you have to ask that, you probably need to see Dr. MacTaggert."  
  
"No! No, I – it's clearing out now. Just give me the date, for a – a reference point, ok?" she pleaded. She had yet to go to a doctor for any ailment simply because she never seemed to have any. It was a point that held sorely with her mother, who suffered from more than her fair share of colds. Rogue had no intention of marring her perfect record with such a silly thing as vertigo.  
  
"All right, don't panic. It's finals week. Christmas break starts on Monday, remember?" Bobby reached for her mittened hand and held it tight. "We're going to make plans to see each other for Christmas Eve, right?"  
  
Slowly, her memory began filling in the blanks and Rogue nodded absently. "It's probably just stress, anyway," she murmured to herself.   
  
"Yeah?" Bobby asked and touched her face in concern. She nodded up at him.  
  
"I swear, I'm not flakin' out on you. Mostly," she teased. He smiled back, and they sat in companionable silence. Across from them, a snowball fight resumed, fast and furious, freshmen versus the seniors. It looked as though the seniors had a definite edge. Rogue laughed as a lean, dark-haired boy dodged and spun with cat-like grace, firing perfect shots at the enemy all the while. A trio of junior girls oohed and ahhed his every missile, and he paused every once in a while to flash them a blinding, cocky grin.   
  
Bobby followed her gaze and snorted. "Remy, you better pay more attention or you're gonna get nailed!" he called.   
  
The acrobat shot a look over at them, and Rogue's stomach twisted briefly. He paused in the act of replying, obviously also affected by something - her? Before he could answer Bobby's warning, though, it came true - someone's snowball caught him smack in the side of the head, and he fell sideways into a snowbank. His cheering squad squealed and threw themselves over him, brushing him off and helping him up.   
  
Bobby shook his head. "Show-off. You know you're the only girl who hasn't fallen for the charms of Mr. LeBeau over there?"  
  
Rogue shrugged. "Not interested, sugar," she lied, though the guilt that accompanied it almost made her flush with shame. She leaned into his side, closing her eyes a bit against the glare of the sun on snow. "Flashy ain't my style. I like'em _real_," she added with a smile. He looked down at her, grinned widely, and kissed her soundly.  
  
As their lips met, she found herself distracted again by LeBeau, who was eying them over the tops of his fan club's heads. A disgruntled expression crossed his face before he turned away to listen to a simpering blonde.   
  
Bobby drew back after a moment and squeezed her shoulders. "Come on, the bell's going to ring any minute. See you for lunch?"  
  
"Of course." As they stood, Rogue pulled him close for another quick kiss. It felt like such a novel experience, as if it wasn't something she had done very often - yet, her familiarity with Bobby indicated that intimacy was not foreign to them. What was the matter with her?  
  
She shrugged to herself and joined the inflow of students to her first class. As she passed through the hallway, though, another wave of dizziness hit. This time it was accompanied by a sharp pain in her head and she groaned, leaning against a doorframe. After a moment, she felt someone's arm around her waist, guiding her to a bench and gently pushing her down onto it.   
  
"Thanks", she muttered, rubbing her forehead fiercely. The ache had begun to fade, leaving a curious emptiness in its wake. She blinked.  
  
"You all right, chere?" a low, warm voice asked.  
  
Rogue froze for a moment - she had assumed that Bobby was with her. Slowly, she looked up to find the same brown-haired boy she'd seen a few minutes before now kneeling in front of her. She glanced around; the hallway was now deserted of students. Reluctantly, she met his gaze.  
  
"Uh, yeah - think I might have a migraine or somethin'," she murmured. She closed her eyes again as another wave of disorientation hit, though it had lessened from the previous attack.   
  
"You think maybe I should get you to Doc MacTaggert? You lookin' pale." Without waiting for an answer, he eased her to her feet and slung an arm around her. As they walked slowly down the hall, Rogue tried to quell the rising warmth his touch was generating. _This ain't the time or place, girl!_ she railed silently at herself.  
  
Remy didn't seem to notice anything, or maybe he was so used to his effect on the female sex that he was simply ignoring it. This made her a little angry, though she wasn't sure why. Probably, he was just respecting the fact that she was someone else's girl. Yeah, that was it. So why was her imagination taunting her with visions of being wrapped in his arms, of flying through the air together, of -  
  
_Flying_?  
  
The thought startled her so much that she stopped in her tracks, almost tripping Remy. "Sorry, I - sorry," she finished lamely.  
  
He gave her a curious look that had more than a question in it. Whatever strange spark had flown between them earlier suddenly returned double-strength, and she could see it changing his face. They stood frozen for a moment, gazing at each other in confusion and attraction. Finally, with great difficulty, she managed to break eye contact and withstand the inclination to throw herself - literally - into his arms. After a few stern comments to her brain, she even began to breathe normally again. Putting a little space between them, she risked a quick glance in his direction - he looked a little dazed, himself.  
  
"Chere, you mind tellin' me why I can't think straight whenever you around?" he mumbled thickly.   
  
"I-"  
  
"On'y girl ever done that to me, y'know? What, you a witch or somethin'?" he continued with a slight smile.  
  
"No - of course I ain't! I think - " she faltered, her hands twisting uselessly around each other.   
  
"Listen, thanks for the assist, but I can make it to Dr. - "  
  
At that point, yet another wave of pain hit, and her legs collapsed. The howling wind returned, and she was barely able to feel Remy's hands catching her before she was ripped away from them and thrown into a swirling cataclysm of sound and light. "Help," she whimpered, but there was no one there to hear her.   
  
Hurtling through the explosion of noise, her overtaxed mind threatening to let go at any moment, she finally did the last thing she was capable of - she passed out.  
  
  
**GAMBIT  
**  
Remy coughed violently and fell forward onto his hands and knees. His lungs burned as though he had not inhaled in a lifetime - but he couldn't have been out for that long, could he?  
  
Another convulsion hit, and his hands slid out from under him, pitching him face-first onto the floor. As it passed, he rolled onto his side and stared into the darkness. Wherever he was, it was big - the echoes of his racking coughs ricocheted all over the room. In the pitch black, though, he had no idea what its dimensions were, or if there was a door, or how he was going to get to Rogue -   
  
_One thing at a time. First I gotta breathe_ -  
  
He pushed himself into a vaguely upright position and concentrated on taking deep, cleansing breaths. As his lungs began to function normally again, the foggy confusion in his brain started to lift. After a moment, everything gave the impression that it was working correctly, and he attempted to stand. A wobbly minute later, he was upright and not even weaving too badly. Hands outstretched to prevent collision, Remy edged his way across the floor until he ran into a wall. He followed it forever, but there was no end to it.   
  
Frustrated, he fumbled with the releases of his spacesuit so that he could reach into a pocket of his uniform underneath. Withdrawing two of his trademark poker cards, he charged them with kinetic energy and held them up close to the wall. In the faint light, he could see no seams, no angles - nothing except an amazing expanse of wall. Holding them up as high as he could, he could not determine how high the ceiling was, or even if there was a ceiling.  
  
He felt the cards start to vibrate slightly, and tossed them at the wall in the futile hope that they would create an escape. Unfortunately, they did no more than flare briefly against the impenetrable material, and then flame out harmlessly. Muttering to himself in French, Remy stalked blindly around his immense holding pen, wondering how the hell he was going liberate Rogue if he couldn't even liberate himself. A few further attempts with more highly charged cards had little or no effect on the wall, which somehow dulled their energy before they had even reached it.   
  
Finally after what felt like hours, he gave up and slouched against the wall, waiting impatiently for something to change. After awhile, he thought he was beginning to see things at the corners of his vision, little glimpses of objects he could not quite make out. Trying to ignore the distractions, he turned his mind toward Rogue, striving to feel her somewhere, anywhere. Almost at once, a surge of awareness slammed into him from her- she was close enough to feel, but he had no sense of the direction from which the link was emanating.  
  
Closing his eyes, he concentrated of the last image he had of her before her departure in the Blackbird. Normally, Remy prided himself on his ability to love 'em and leave 'em, but Rogue was completely different. Something about this mission had caused him a minor panic attack, a condition he was completely unfamiliar with, and one that at once frightened him and pleased him. Before she had boarded, he'd caught her and drawn her into a shadow.  
  
"Be careful, chere." At the anxiety in his voice, she had glanced up in surprise. He tried to cover it with a laugh. "I want a rematch, and this time no powers."  
  
With a grin, she had reached up a gloved hand and chucked his chin briefly. "Sugar, I'll be back to trounce ya in no time." She started to leave, then turned and gave him a long look that started a strange tingling in his middle, and he frowned as emotions suddenly conflicted. Seeing his reaction, she sighed.  
  
"Rem, I'll be fine. I'm a big girl. Relax."  
  
"You sure you don' want me up dere?" he asked, the unknown anxiety increasing.  
  
A small frown creased her forehead. "Why the sudden loss of faith?"  
  
"No, no - I don' mean...Forget it. I'll see ya later." Annoyed with himself and a little with her, he turned as if to leave but she spun him back around.  
  
"Will you just say it and get it off your chest so I can go and do my job?" she snapped. She stood glaring at him, and he felt his temper rise.  
  
"Clear skies, girl," he said coolly and immediately regretted it. A wall clamped down behind her eyes and she took a step back, but not before he saw a flash of hurt anger cross her face. She backed up a few steps and ran a hand through her hair.  
  
"See ya," she told him shortly and whirled around.   
  
"Rogue -"  
  
Striding away from him, she had waved him away. "Later." He watched her sink into command mode as she crossed to the open hatch of the Blackbird, passing Storm with a curt word. Ororo looked back at Remy and shook her head at him, then followed her teammate up into the ship. Cursing silently at himself, he had watched as the landing ramp rose and sealed itself before returning to the command center. He had been unable to shake the foreboding that something was about to go terribly wrong.  
  
He hated it when he was right.  
  
With a grunt, he opened his eyes and stared grimly into the inky blackness, his concentration broken. The wisps of light were growing stronger; now he could almost see webs of silvery strands darting directly in front of him. The glare from one particular streak made him wince, and his frown deepened. This was more than tricks in the dark. Something, finally , was happening.  
  
"_Merde_," he cursed quietly and rose to his feet, backing away from a nimbus of bright light that was forming before his eyes. Its luminosity increased to a terrible brightness that seared his eyes. Arms over his face, he retreated to a wall and crouched defensively.   
  
Through his closed eyelids the glare decreased to a more manageable level, and he cautiously opened them again. A few feet away from him, a sphere hovered above the ground at waist level, crackling with raw energy. Tendrils of molten silver washed over it sporadically - almost like an orb of a self-contained electrical ocean. Shapes moved on its surface; pictures appearing and changing rapidly. He had drawn a little closer, trying to identify the visions - when a tendril suddenly reached out and touched his temple.  
  
It was a strange feeling; he was no longer aware of his body contained in some sort of room on a wandering asteroid. The sphere had vanished - or perhaps he was inside of it. For a moment, he floated in midair, and then there was a great rush of wind driving him down, down -  
  
He plunged into a maelstrom of visual and aural noise, voices howling and winds ripping at him. At the center, he saw a tiny figure that he was fast approaching, and a sharp pain shot through his chest. Through the pain, through the noise, he reached out and held onto her image.  
  
And suddenly, it stopped.  
  
He started, hearing unfamiliar thoughts. _Oh LeBeau, you in trouble, ami... That girl be the prettiest thing here, and she's goin' wit your best friend_.   
  
Looking around, he determined that a tall young man with his back to him was the source. The boy stood watching a couple walk away from him, an athletic-looking blond boy leading - Rogue. Only this was a Rogue Remy had never known. Obviously still a teenager, she showed no sign of her mutant abilities -   
  
"What's goin' on?" he muttered as he watched her sit. The blonde boy put an arm around her, and he felt his insides churn as she leaned comfortably against him. At that moment, her boyfriend turned to look back in Remy's direction.   
  
"Bobby?" he breathed in astonishment. What the hell was this? He tore his gaze away from them and took a quick survey of his surroundings. He stood in a snowy field in front of a tall stone building - a school. "Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters" blazed across a wide entryway in bright red letters.   
  
A fast and furious snowball fight whizzed all around him, but the snow didn't touch him, it went through him. As his brain tried to catch up with his circumstances, the lean, dark-haired boy whose thoughts still echoed in his head turned back to the snowball fight, and Remy's jaw dropped.  
  
It was himself, ten years younger.   
  
Bewildered, he watched the boy dodge and leap, occasionally tossing glances back towards Rogue and Bobby. He took another careful look around.   
  
The schoolyard was full of familiar faces, but none of them were quite right. Hank McCoy, for example, was neither hirsute, nor blue, nor huge - but he was nonetheless a bespectacled, familiar face. Jean was there too, wearing some sort of expensive and stylish coat and chatting amiably with Ororo, a brunette Betsy in her former Caucasian body, and throwing coy looks over her shoulder at Scott - who was not wearing his ruby visor.   
  
Remy blinked. And there, playing alongside the younger LeBeau, still tall and burly but nowhere near his mutant size, darted Peter Rasputin, gaily shouting encouragement in Russian to his flagging comrades. After a slow scan of the premises, he identified almost every one of the teenagers as his fellow teammates - but none of them showed any indication of their mutant powers. They were clearly, undeniably, fully human.  
  
A bell rang, and he followed the flow of students into the building, curious to see the differences between this reality and the one he knew. Ahead of him, he saw Rogue and Bobby part. His younger alter ego tailed Rogue, and Remy shadowed him, sure now that no one could see him.   
  
Abruptly, Rogue hissed in pain and started to crumple. Without thinking, he sprinted up to catch her, but she passed through his hands. Another pair was there in time, and he stepped back while the younger LeBeau spoke quietly to Rogue.   
  
Ignoring their conversation, Remy moved around so he could see Rogue more clearly, and impulsively reached out to touch her face just as something seized her. A vortex manifested in front of them and dragged both the physical Rogue and the incorporeal Remy into another hurricane of disorientation. Rogue was obviously in much pain; desperate to help alleviate it, he tried to reach out to her, and this time the touch was solid - he could feel her skin beneath his fingers.  
  
A stinging sensation started at his fingertips and spread rapidly until his whole being vibrated like a plucked string. His fingers were glued to her temple, but she was unaware of him, wracked in a torrent of mental pain.   
  
_Rogue, can you hear me? _he shouted silently, and the tingling increased. Suddenly he felt a great heave, as if something had pushed him forward. He pitched forward into another lightless space and fell to his knees, out of breath.   
  
Again he felt foreign thoughts, though the space around him remained dark. They weren't as clear as those from his other self, but he could recognize confusion and pain and fear. A light flickered, and then a blurry image started to focus around him. He blinked, and the vision became his vision. He stared.   
  
Gradually coming into focus was the reflection of a tall young woman with green eyes, a lithe build, and a tell-tale witch-streak in her auburn hair. She lay on her back, staring dazedly up into some kind of mirrored surface. So did he.  
  
He was inside of Rogue.   
  
**   
ROGUE**   
  
Rogue blinked, her head throbbing. Waves of pain radiated out from somewhere in her lower temporal regions. Through the mist that hung before her eyes, she began to make out the fuzzy shapes of cables. Lots of cables, which were connected to the helmet she felt pressing down onto her head.   
  
Out of the fog, she heard a strange cacophony of clicking noises that ran up and down a scale so melodiously that it sounded more like music than a form of communication. The sounds wreathed around her from all directions, and she could not determine its source. She tried to move her head, but found her body completely restrained; after a moment, she felt a metal slab beneath her and metal bands confining her entire body. Panicking, she called upon her strength and strained against her bonds, to no effect. Whatever else the thing on her head was doing, it had also negated her mutant strength - and, she was willing to bet, her flight and power-absorption capabilities as well. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember the last thing she had seen before waking. There was a memory of - of school, and home, and Bobby - and of being normal -  
  
Being normal? That couldn't be. Yet, the memory felt real. Even now, the image of the school tallied with other, slightly submerged memories of a normal childhood; of her mother's pride when she was accepted to one of the most prestigious prep schools in the country, of meeting Bobby there and falling in love...  
  
But that wasn't true, was it? Wasn't there something about Bobby that didn't feel right? There was someone else, some connection that wasn't quite there with Bobby but was there with...who? A strange feeling of movement coalesced briefly in her head, and she frowned. It almost felt like someone else was in there, thinking at her, but what?  
  
Abruptly the faint image of a face evolved in her inner eye. She caught a quick glimpse of strangely red eyes that bored into her, but not with threat or malice. There were hints of irony and slyness there, but most of all, she saw fear and concern and something so deep and unfathomable that she was afraid to put a label on it. Before she could study it further, though, a lance of white-hot agony washed through her mind and she screeched involuntarily. The face vanished, and her confusion shattered into one thing only - pain. Fruitlessly she struggled to bring her eyes into focus as a tall shadow leaned over her and tugged on a wire, but another shear of pain made her close her eyes and clench her teeth, tears streaking down her face.  
  
_Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy..._ Her mind seemed capable of only the one word, but it couldn't force her vocal chords to do anything but scream. The feeling of something else in her head returned, and suddenly some of the misery eased. It felt as though a barrier now stood between her and the worst of the insanity. It was not a perfect blockade; slivers stole around the edges and pierced her sore mind - but it deflected the brunt of the attack to the point that she was able to reorganize some of her thoughts into a coherent pattern.   
  
Evidently, the beings around her picked up the fact that she was somehow protecting herself, because they fiddled with a control panel, and then there was nothing. Rogue lay still, panting, wary. Her ears rang incessantly and her vision blurred in and out. She still could not get a good look at her captors. Too weak to do anything but lie there contemplating their next move, she waited.  
  
Then the lights went out.   
  
Without warning, an intense flash of blue-white light swept the room, ricocheting around the room until it hit her straight in the chest. Her heart contracted painfully as oxygen was forced out of her lungs. In front of her, a tube of energy the size of a small building hung in the air and emitted a vacuum-like suction. It pulled her off the metal slab and stretched her body into contortions she did not want to think about, until the last metal band shrieked and gave under its insistence. Plummeting down a corridor of light, she pinwheeled past images of her life that stretched on for several galaxy-lengths. Another burst of energy consumed her and she blacked out -   



	3. The Forever War

**PART THREE  
  
GAMBIT  
  
**He stared out through her eyes onto a world that was frighteningly different from their own, thrown by its hostility and danger. Uncomprehendingly, he - she - they tried to focus on what someone close by was trying to tell them, but the words waxed and waned about them without their ability to understand.  
  
He blinked privately and tried to adjust once again to the miasma of confusion that writhed through her to him. One of them had to keep their head, because it was becoming increasingly apparent that Rogue was losing control. The longer they stayed away from their origin point, the more her memories faded and became vague, and the murkiness had begun to transfer into Remy's head.   
  
A wave of fear rushed through her to him as her mind tried to adjust to its new placement in this existence. The ground seized beneath them and the body rolled out of instinct, Rogue's arms clutching over her head and curling into a fetal position just in time to avoid a huge beam that crashed down mere inches from their collective face. Wide-eyed, they stared at their near brush with death, stunned into blankness, until a hand reached out from the corner of their vision and grasped one of Rogue's arms. It pulled her gently up, another hand at her back.  
  
Remy gazed wordlessly into the face of their saviour - its familiar aquiline profile, the proud grey eyes softer than he had ever seen them, the betraying mane of silver hair straggling and dirty now. In shock, he lost his concentration, and felt Rogue's mind settle firmly into this present. As she turned to address the man, a shuddering explosion threw both once more to the ground, and a tremendous force propelled Remy deeply into Rogue's subconscious as she sprawled once again on the floor, victim both to the impact and a strange, sick feeling that roiled up from her innards. Trapped within a dark cage in her mind, Remy reached out to her, desperate for the slightest contact. Just as he managed a slender connection with her, a violent flash of light seared through him, and he yelped in pain as darkness fell.  
  
  
**ROGUE**  
  
Bombs shook the rickety building providing their shelter. Erik looked over at her in intense concern as she lay on a cement floor, dizzy and weak from their latest encounter with Holocaust. She didn't want to say anything to him, but the illness that she had fought for more than a month now was beginning to rear its ugly head again - and at a most inopportune time. Swearing viciously, she tried to control a wave of nausea, but Erik heard her anyway.  
  
"We've got to get you out of here before this thing collapses," he whispered urgently. Ignoring her protests, he hauled her to her feet and into his arms. Then, summoning his reserves, he reached out and formed a magnetic shield around them. Slowly, they edged out of the building and around into a wrecked alley. Human remains littered the cement and Erik winced in horror.   
  
"Damn," he cursed fervently. She understood. Their mission to liberate this slave pit had come far too late - evidently one of their sources had been playing both ends against the middle. Again. When were they going to learn that "trust no one" meant exactly that?  
  
Her stomach twisted uncomfortably, and she tried mightily to ignore it. They needed to keep moving before they were caught by another roving company of Madri. Their little band of rebels had been moving steadily up-country, trying to reach what might be their last safe haven, a deserted manor house that had once belonged to a friend of Erik's - one who had escaped the hellish existence that had come to pass with his death.  
  
A wave of dizziness hit her and she leaned her head against Erik's chest as they moved soundlessly through the terrible channel of blood. Their bubble of safety hovered a few feet above the ground, moving forward under Erik's guidance as he pulled energy from the magnetic field of the earth itself. He smoothed a hand over her forehead and murmured, "I shouldn't have let you come. You've been ill for too long - something's wrong. We'll be to Blink in a few more minutes." She nodded against his chest and opened her eyes, attempting to at least scan for danger and not be completely useless, her mind wandering a bit.  
  
How odd that even in the middle of hell, love still existed.  
  
As alert as she could be, she swept their path watchfully, looking for signs of Apocalypse and his goon squad. She wasn't sure that she could face them in her condition, but she would fight to the last if it would buy some time for Erik. If only her body could fight off this - whatever it was, she could return to being a team leader. Damn Beast and Sinister! They had strayed from human experimentation into mutant genetics, and had begun using gene-enhanced biochemical warfare against the few remaining pockets of mutant resistance in the bombed-out Northeast. Rogue was sure her current condition was a direct result of a Sinister bomb, though she couldn't remember when she had been first exposed. Unfortunately, the good guys were limited to the old-fashioned methods of antibiotics and field medicine - and it was costing them.  
  
First Psylocke had died, followed closely by M and Rahne - that particular plague had focused on females, presumably to wipe out breeders. As a result, Pietro had cooked up a close-fitting haz-mat suit that each of the women wore day and night, until they were sure that particular nasty had dissipated. Their numbers were already so low-  
  
Ahead of them, a shadow stepped away from a building and held up a hand. "Incoming!" it shouted, and Rogue was relieved to hear the familiar voice of Blink. She also heard the sounds of multiple weaponry being safetied and peered a little closer into the shadows. Gradually, more shadows detached from the murk and resolved into Quicksilver, Storm, and Morph  
  
"What's with the metal?" she asked as another wave of nausea hit. She spared a moment to concentrate on breathing, and almost missed the answer.   
  
"Works as well as anything else," Morph shrugged, unusually somber. The sickness of their situation repressed even his incorrigible humor. He looked around in disgust and pity. "Didn't have to use them, anyway, and Petey thought it would be good backup."  
  
Pietro shrugged uneasily. Erik gave him a hard look but refrained from commenting; his hatred of artillery was well known.  
  
"Time to go home, kids," Blink announced. "All aboard, ladies first. You look terrible," she added in an undertone to Rogue.  
  
Rogue cracked a smile. "Thanks a lot, kid. Think I may have gotten a bit up ol' Sinister's latest creation."  
  
Blink's face paled and she reached out a hand involuntarily, which stopped at the barrier of the magnetic shield Erik had imposed around them. Recovering, she turned and concentrated on an area of wall behind her, and with a BLINK!, a teleportation doorway manifested.   
  
Erik moved smoothly forward and entered with Rogue. As the light flared briefly about them, Rogue felt a sudden panic attack. What was happening to her? She had teleported with Blink a thousand times; why would this trip suddenly feel menacing? Closing her eyes, she clutched at Erik's armor and waited for the anxiety to ease.   
  
A bump later, they had stepped through the doorway and Erik stood still, looking down at her. She raised her head and looked out around a forest clearing. Through the trees, she could make out the shape of a building not too far away.   
  
"Is that it?"  
  
Erik looked out. "Yes." Adjusting her long body against him, he set off carefully through the wood.   
  
About ten feet from the edge of the rear wall of the building, he stopped and set her gently on her feet. Drawing her hand into his, he led her to the remains of a storm cellar and moved aside a panel. Beneath the rotten wood gleamed a metal door, on which he concentrated. With a creak of long-unused hinges, the door raised off its mounting and slid aside into the concrete foundation. Cautiously, Erik descended a long flight of stairs, Rogue close behind. At the bottom, they faced another bank of closed metal doors, over each of which blinked computer panels.  
  
A loud humming filled the room as Erik stepped up to the panel and let it scan his eye.   
  
"Identity: Erik Lensherr confirmed. Access granted," a computerized voice informed them as one of the doors slid smoothly aside.  
  
Before them lay paradise.  
  
Rogue caught her breath, taking in a real, honest-to-goodness, functional, well-kept, operational base. "Erik, who..."  
  
"It was a pet project we were working on when Charles died. We had already drawn up the plans, and after Charles willed the mansion to me, I went ahead with construction. I never had a chance to use it before Apocalypse came to power, but I'm glad to see it seems to have survived intact."  
  
Rogue continued to study the area with delight. It had been a good ten years since they had been able to live in anything more luxurious than hidden encampments. She was barely aware of anything as Erik took her hand again and led her down a long hallway, she was so taken with the various computer readouts and glimpses of living spaces that they passed. When he stopped, she nearly ran into him.  
  
"Sorry."  
  
He grinned at her. "It's a bit overwhelming, I know."  
  
"Why did you stay away from this for so long?"  
  
A shadow crossed his face. "This area has been heavily scanned and guarded until now. There were many human hideouts up here, but my guess is that Holocaust and the Madri have finally overrun even the last outposts. They no longer see this area as a problem."  
  
Rogue turned and cupped his face. "We're doing all we can. Don't blame yourself."  
  
His lips tightened, and she knew that she had caught him in a guilt trip again. Shaking her head, she stepped away and took in the new room. It seemed to be a medical facility.  
  
"Ah. You plannin' on giving me a check-up, doctor?" she asked with a grin.  
  
A spark gleamed in his eyes. "As a matter of fact, my dear wife, I am. Come here - I want Cerebro to test your blood to see if he can isolate any pathogens."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Cere - the computer. Come here," he ordered again.  
  
She tried to saunter over to him, but halfway there her legs collapsed and she crumpled to a heap on the floor. Instantly, Erik was there, gathering her close and carrying her over to a gurney. She lay quietly as he took a blood sample and inserted it into a slot in the wall for the computer to analyze. Then he turned back and clasped her hand tightly in his, worry lines etched into his forehead. Rogue lifted a hand and smoothed back a long strand of long silver hair from his cheek, her fingers lingering there.   
  
"I'm sure whatever it is, my invulnerability will handle it sooner or later," she soothed. He didn't look convinced until she smiled reassuringly and stroked his cheek. After a moment, she felt his muscles relax and he touched his lips briefly to the palm of her hand.  
  
A strange sensation suddenly swept through her - almost a jealousy of Erik, but not originating from her. She frowned and shook off the odd feeling. Probably just a side effect of whatever bug was having a field day in her body. From a console, the a computer pinged attracted their attention, and Erik rose to study a screen. He stayed frozen for so long that Rogue started to feel the first prickles of fear.  
  
"Erik?"  
  
He didn't move. With some difficulty, she swung her legs over the side of the gurney and staggered to him. "What is it? Am I that ill? What's wrong with me?" Her voice rose, and she fought a panicky feeling that threatened to engulf her.  
  
The stress in her voice brought him around and he grasped her shoulders, his eyes flashing oddly.   
  
"You're not sick. I mean, not with one of Sinister's creations. You're not even really sick -" he stopped, and she thought that he looked remarkably close to crying and laughing at the same time.  
  
"WHAT?!" she bellowed.  
  
He stepped aside so that she could read the diagnosis on the screen. It took three attempts before the words penetrated.  
  
"I'm pregnant?" she whispered. Somewhere in her mind, she thought she felt a terrible wrench of loneliness and did not understand it. Distracted by the alien feelings in her head, she forgot a moment about everything else. Who was in there?  
  
In reply, an achingly familiar face materialized before her inner eye. What pierced her the most were the eyes, so full of a love and compassion she did not remember. She concentrated harder until the face came into focus, and she gasped. She knew him, but this was not the face that she knew. The hair was different, and the hard lines she had traced with a glove once upon a time were only beginning to show. It was slightly older than the face she remembered; but most of all, this face was full of a suffering its counterpart had never known.   
  
Thoroughly rattled, she gasped and opened her eyes, to find Erik holding her tightly and murmuring her name into her hair over and over again. Dazed, her arms wrapped around him of their own accord, and she blinked, confused. Without warning, her body collapsed into uncontrolled shivering.  
  
"C-can't b-b-believe this," she stuttered to Erik, trying desperately to control her rebellious body. Trying to take deep breaths only worsened the situation, and she raged silently at her betrayal. _Stop,_ she commanded herself sternly, fighting the growing anxiety that ate at her chest, tightening it. From out of nowhere, the memory of her first touch reared up before her mind's eye. Erik had pretty much told her powers the same thing as he sheathed himself in a mere atom's-breadth of magnetic shielding, and reached out a hand. She remembered her incredulity, her fear, and the same emotions washed over her now at the thought of a child - her child. How could it ever be safe in this world? How would they protect it? By the very virtue of his parentage, its life would always be threatened. How -  
  
Again, a strange pressure in her mind told her that whatever else was up there was moving around, and then some of the panic lifted, and she was able to breathe again. Blinking a red miasma out of her eyes, she came back to herself as a flood of sudden, intense joy cleansed the last of the fear away. A baby!   
  
She caught a soft brush of loving melancholy and thought unexpectedly of Remy LeBeau, onetime protege to Magneto - and - _  
  
Lover,_ a quiet voice named him for her. _Once upon a time. _With an effort, she pushed him back into a quiet corner in her mind. They had all made their choices, choices based on survival of mind as well as body. If she had elected for a "safer" route, so be it: it was done. There were new choices to be made now.  
  
  
**GAMBIT**  
  
He floated restlessly within the confines of his prison, sending spurts of vague comfort Rogue-wards both to ease her confusion and to cover his tracks. It had struck him as important that he let no more of his own emotions permeate her consciousness, for both of their sakes - the consequences could be catastrophic. He did not understand what had thrown him into her mind, or where his own body was, or what cosmic force had dumped them into this situation. After hours of frustrated attempts to break out of whatever force had vanquished him, he had given up to rest and regroup; but ideas escaped him and he groaned and leaned his head against a figurative wall.  
  
_Rogue, Rogue, how we gon' get you home? I_ _know dis ain't the place we s'posed to be, but _you_, chere - you move so easily from time to time...Whoever messin' wit your head - our head - we got to stop 'em before dey hurt you more.   
  
_Detached, he took a moment to examine his handiwork; the fright and pain and joy and all other manner of emotions which had threatened to overwhelm Rogue had subsided with his help, and her mind had settled into a calm unease - if that was possible.  
  
_Why you doin' dis t'us? _he roared suddenly into the silence. _Why you torture us like dis? Haven't we been through enough?  
_  
A wave of apprehension from her distracted him and he stopped, realizing suddenly how "loudly" he must have been thinking in his frustration. Awkwardly, he concentrated on blankness and hoped that his intrusion would fade quickly enough not to worry Rogue further. Abruptly a force knocked him deeper into darkness, though he fought wildly, but to no avail. The stream of impressions from Rogue diminished to a sporadic drip-drop of vague impressions that wound slowly across the gloom. He watched angrily, grasping at the bits and pieces of information and trying to connect them into some kind of pattern that made sense, but they were too disparate.  
  
A parade of images passed, blinking in and out with no accounting for between-times. Indeed, he felt that somehow he had stepped outside of the timestream entirely; it simply had no meaning this far into the subconscious. Periodically, he was able to focus long enough on a picture to follow the event; otherwise, circumstances ebbed and flowed so quickly that he could barely catch the inkling of one before another had replaced it.  
  
From the rare tidbits he gleaned, he pieced together that this world had been decimated in an unholy war launched by Apocalypse. A few straggling bands of mutants were in the midst of allying themselves to overthrow him, but their valiant struggles paled in comparison to the horrors inflicted by Apocalypse's army. Rogue had stepped seamlessly into her role as second in command of her outlaw band, but even her inimitable strength waned over time as hope for an end to the atrocities gradually dimmed. At last, he could do nothing but wait.  
  
  
**ROGUE**  
  
"Father, I respectfully disagree," Pietro told Erik evenly. "With the loss of Jean, Weapon X, and Gambit we simply don't have the people to organize this kind of assault, especially on a unit as large as the one stationed near the genetics plant."  
  
Rogue sighed quietly and sat back in her chair, rubbing her enlarged stomach absently to soothe its twisting. Lately, it seemed as if Pietro and his father argued more and more frequently on the fine points. To Erik's left, she saw Ororo shift in her seat, a sure indication that she was about to intervene. On the one hand, Rogue was grateful that the windrider had taken it on herself to mediate; it took some of the pressure off Rogue. On the other, Ororo tended to side with Pietro.   
  
Across the table, Nightcrawler cleared his throat, and the debaters turned to him in surprise. "While I agree that we have yet to replace the assets that our departed friends took with them, I believe we have the resources to infiltrate that gene factory and shut it down. However, I don't think this can be accomplished through the plan you outlined, Erik. An infiltration force would be far more effective than a full-on frontal assault."  
  
"What do you suggest?" Erik asked.  
  
"A small team consisting of Pietro, Ororo, Clarice, Victor, and myself. Storm can summon a fog to cover our entry, and use an electrical strike to short out the perimeter fence. Blink and I can port us to the main facility. Quicksilver and the rest will disperse the bombs while Clarice and I knock out the main communications terminals from an auxiliary access pointhere," he finished, indicating a concealed alcove on the schematic displayed on a monitor in the center of the table.   
  
Erik nodded reluctantly. "Pietro?"  
  
"It seems sound. As a smaller unit we have a better chance at a strike and fade" he trailed off.  
  
"The factory needs to be taken out now," Ororo reminded him gently. That seemed to decide him and he gave a brisk nod of agreement.  
  
"Then it's decided. Kurt, I leave you and Pietro to hash out further details and report to me in the morning. That is all." Erik stood and the rest followed suit and filed out, breaking up into small groups and they left. Rogue remained seated, a faraway expression on her face.  
  
"What is it, love?" The question popped her out of her trance and she smiled guiltily.   
  
"Oh, nothin', really. Just a little stir-crazy after months of bein' cooped up. And the little guy's been pretty active lately." To prove her point, her stomach twisted again.  
  
"Well, you're very close to the delivery date. Just a few more days, from what Kurt has told us." He crouched down in front of her chair and held a hand to her cheek.   
  
"I know," she replied, giving his hand a squeeze – one whose pressure suddenly increased as the twisting in her middle sharpened.  
  
"Oh, my –" she gasped. Erik stood up, alert and worried. She gasped again as realization and another contraction hit simultaneously. "I think our time's up," she managed.  
  
With a wild look of mixed joy and anxiety, Erik fairly leapt over to the communications board and shouted for Kurt to prep the medical bay. The baby was on his way.  
  
  
  
**GAMBIT**  
  
The silence got to him the most. The tedious wait for even a tidbit of information, the teasing slip of a thought that managed to slip through the mysterious barrier that prevented him from dipping into her consciousness. It was enough to drive him crazy.   
  
To keep himself occupied, he reviewed their situation over and over again, committing every detail to memory. Hopefully, it would be useful to someone when and if they ever got out of this mess. At the moment, though, he couldn't fathom a way out. Even reaching out with his limited telepathy did little more than give him a roaring headache as he smashed up against the shield between his mind and Rogue's.   
  
Slumped in a "corner", he was dozing when the darkness in front of him rippled. Suddenly wide awake, he concentrated, searching for the cause. Something was happening to Rogue, some sort of pain. The wave pulsated more strongly the second time, and he felt the wall weaken beneath its onslaught. Bracing himself, he reached out again with his mind, met the shield, and _pushed_. With a soundless groan, the barrier crumpled and Remy shot through the gap into the forefront of her mind, his emotions narrowing to a straight arrow of anxiety for her safety.  
  
Suddenly, Remy realized that he had fallen directly into her body. A searing pain threatened to split their loins and back, an unbearable pushing - sweating and cursing and screaming. With great effort, he ripped himself out of her sensations and managed to stand apart. It took a moment for him to realize what they were going through – he had half forgotten about her pregnancy.   
  
With excitement and a little fear, he shook off the paralysis of surprise and moved quickly, quelling her pain centers. He took a moment to hide himself; he didn't want her to sense him and become anxious. Once concealed, he continued to send nebulous feelings of love and encouragement.  
  
Hours passed. Remy was alternately wild with expectation and patient for Rogue's sake, waiting for the baby to come. He knew his presence had relaxed Rogue, and that she was too weary from the long labor to question the relief. A part of him was secretly impressed with Erik and his steadiness throughout the whole situation – although it did little to dispel occasional jabs of jealousy. Privately, he soothed himself with, _It's not real. Not in the way dat matters. Not if I'm still here. We goin' through somethin', but it's still only some kind o' illusion. I hope._  
  
Suddenly, he felt her body gather for a final effort. At the business end of things, Kurt looked up and gave a supportive smile. "That's it! Only a little bit more, _liebchen_. One more push."  
  
With a final heave, her body twisted and lay limply; there was an expectant silence, broken a moment later by the healthy yell of a baby. Exhausted, elated, Remy huddled near to her, touching the child with her fingers - their child. He rode a wave of tired emotions as Erik kissed and held his wife and child close. Even so, he caught the faint, wistful thought before she pushed it aside –  
  
_Oh Remy, this could have been us_  
  
Startled, he thought for a moment that she was referring to him, and almost replied in kind. Just in time, he realized that she was referring to the Remy of this time – a man she was trying desperately to forget for reasons unknown to him. The tinge of sadness surrounding the wisp of dream seared him, and the slow taint of guilt colored his thoughts. Even in this place, he – or a version of him – had managed to hurt her. But there were other things to dwell on now, not the least of which was the amazing, tiny infant nestled in Rogue's – their – arms.  
  
_An enfant, Rogue! You a mama..._A slow realization crawled over him. This was what he wanted, with her. Ororo had been right - they were blocking each other by not trusting, by not having faith in the other person. _But no more, Rogue, I promise. No more secrets - dey not worth the pain we been puttin' each other through. I'm s'posed to protect you, and now I watch the bébé with you, too. Somehow we gonna get you back, den we gonna tell each other some truths.   
_  
They held the squalling newborn close, sharing the same joy tempered by a great fear: could this tiny life survive in a world on the brink of chaos? Even as the thoughts snaked from one mind into another, Remy felt a brutal tug that ripped him away and hurled back into his prison. Cursing in three languages, he threw himself at the barrier, willing it to break down.  
  
At last he made a hole large enough to link with Rogue, and found to his disquiet that many months had passed. The global situation had plummeted. Apocalypse was planning a final strike against the human High Council, Magneto was readying a counterattack, and things in general were coming to an inevitable end.   
  
Night. Rogue had wrestled away five minutes to play with the baby – nearly a toddler now – and was reading him a story, cuddling him close to her. The little boy tangled the fingers of one hand in her hair, sucking his other thumb sleepily, lulled by her steady voice and the warm safety of being with his mother.  
  
A noise distracted them, and Remy experienced a sudden wrenching and then a sort of double vision. It was so strong, that for a moment, he was unable to shield it from Rogue, and she looked up and around, trying to find the source of her discomfort. One of the shadows in the darkened room detached from the wall and walked quietly up to her. She shook her head to clear it as the foreignness inside abruptly winked out, leaving only her own puzzlement.   
  
"Remy." The figure drew into the weak moonlight filtering in through the unshaded window.  
  
"Chere," a rough voice replied.  
  
Gambit studied himself through Rogue's awareness. _Homme, what you done to y'self? _Abruptly, a flash of anger seared him. _And what you do to Rogue, huh? Why she so sad b'cause of you? Me? Whoever?  
_  
He calmed slowly. _Ain't nothin' I can do bout it now, anyway. You so cold, but I see the love you still hold for her. So does she. We alike, you an' I, but we diff'rent, neh? Those lines, the pain I see -_   
  
Pensive, he withdrew further into her mind to observe the proceedings.  
  
  
**ROGUE**   
  
"...Erik ask me t'meet him. Said it was important, non?   
  
Blankly, Rogue told him, "I don't know - he never said anythin' to me." She stared at him, unable to speak further, her mind presenting and discarding scenarios. Why now?  
  
The snap-hiss of an igniting match distracted her, and she watched as he lit a cigarette. Then she blinked and remembered where they were.  
  
"Gambit, smoke out here." She led the way through a sliding glass door that opened onto a stone verandah. They took up positions on either side of a stone ornament carved into the porch railing.  
  
Gambit blew a smoke ring, looking out across the grounds. "L'enfant, he's-"  
  
"My son. Erik's." She found that she could not look at him. "Almost two now."  
  
"Iffy thing, bringin' a bebe into dis world. "  
  
"I know. We've done all right so far. And we got some help." She jerked her head back into the room, and Gambit turned to look. A metal nanny droid stood next to the baby's crib, monitoring him. He knew of their amazing protective capabilities - they were nearly indestructible, even by mutant standards, and were programmed to defend their charges beyond their own obliteration. Charles probably was quite safe.  
  
Rogue looked at the moonlit-dappled lawn below them. Strange shadows criss-crossed the grass as clouds blew across the moon as she stood in disquiet. Never, not once, had she questioned her loyalty and love to Erik - and she had known when Gambit left that her choice was the right one. But not now. She remembered the very moment that the strangeness had started - the feeling that she was not quite alone in her head. The foreign consciousness that occasionally surfaced was benign and somehow familiar. She'd even seen its face once - its double stood beside her now.  
  
"Rogue."   
  
"Hmm?"   
  
"You a million miles away. "  
  
She sighed. "We're synchronizin' a strike against Apocalypse's stronghold. Erik's been tryin' to coordinate with the human high command overseas; but with all the suspicions they have, we don't know that they won't bomb the hell out of us instead o' cooperatin'. I got a lot on my mind."  
  
Hearing a dry laugh, she turned and glared at her companion. "What?"  
  
"You. Always plannin'. Never knew a time when you weren't in battle-mode, chere." He paused and flicked out his cigarette butt, watching it float away into the darkness. "S'what I love 'bout you," he muttered.  
  
"Remy - "  
  
"Shush. Gambit knows you, girl, and his heart ain't changed even if yours did. It enough for me t'see you here in the moonlight and remember." He brushed a gloved hand across her cheek. "Gotta find Erik now, b'fore I do somethin' stupid." He gave her a piercing look, and then jumped easily over the stone banister, landing lightly on the grounds below. She watched until he vanished into the gloom, heading toward the front of the house.  
  
_It's too late. It's been too late for years, _she thought; then a sad smile quirked one corner of her mouth._  
  
I wish I believed that.  
_  
  
  
  
**GAMBIT**  
  
They stood together, two minds compressed into a single body, each preoccupied with their separate thoughts. Rogue had sunk into a deep and distant reverie, so Gambit felt it was safe enough to risk some hard thinking of his own. They were in a very dangerous world, and he didn't know how they could leave it, or if Rogue even understood that she didn't belong there. The longer they remained in this place, the more her memories of the other places, especially of her own reality, slipped out of their mind. It was only a dream-like notion for her in the first place - the idea that what occurred now was not the only way that things could have happened. Gambit, having witnessed several probabilities now, found it an easier concept; nonetheless, he had to keep those thoughts shielded for Rogue's protection, and so had begun to forget little bits and pieces without really realizing it.   
  
Poking around, he made sure that Rogue was firmly entrenched in her own contemplation before opening his mind to the diminished flood of his private memories. He sat in his non-darkness and remembered, reveling in the delusion of a solitary existence. Slowly, though, flashes of strong emotion began to appear in the midst of his meditations. After a particularly violent image erupted in the place of a picnic he and Rogue had once shared, he found himself once more free of his prison and wasted no time in tapping into Rogue's psyche.  
  
A savage battle greeted his reentry. Disoriented by the bloodshed, he could not immediately process the sight of the slain bodies of half his pseudo-teammates. Rogue pushed them forward into a smoking wreck of a building, ignoring the carnage, intent on only one thing -   
  
-_Have to hold 'em long enough to disable the Atlantic shield. The bombs gotta get through_ - and then, a smaller voice cried piteously, - _my baby's gonna die, my baby's gonna die, my baby's gonna die _-   
  
Gambit withdrew, thinking furiously as a tremendous explosion shook the ground. Bombs? The humans had launched after all, and that meant - Boom.  
  
His heart in his shoes, he could only stand by helplessly as Rogue waded through the battle, searching for - there. Erik stood, bloody but defiant over the corpse of the monster, Apocalypse. She asked him a question and he pointed to a shard of brightly glowing crystal. Through her eyes, he saw the confusing image of three people disappearing into the glare, and one of them looked a lot like Bishop - but _his_ Bishop - but how could that...?  
  
Rogue looked away, taking him with, to take Charles away from Magneto. "It's too late -" she started to tell him, but his look of sadness silenced her. Remy saw such pain and defeat in the older man's gaze, that for once, his sorely-held animosity towards him faded. This could have been a man to respect and follow, not a raging egomaniac to defend against.   
  
Quietly, Rogue accepted Charles into her arms, and Remy leaned in close, inhaling the little boy's sweet baby-scent. The terror she had managed to curb until now exploded once in a shower of agonized acceptance of their fate; then she firmly dampened it and turned into Erik's side. He murmured to her, something about a mission and returning the timeline to its rightful place - things Remy didn't understand, but apparently gave Rogue a small measure of comfort.   
  
In the distance, bright stars flared, arrowing straight in toward them. The little family, and in the distance, the few survivors of the initial battle, turned to face the incoming missiles. His mind suddenly cleared of emotion, and for the first time, he could hear Rogue's thoughts clearly. In the distance, the first bomb immolated Ellis Island.  
  
_FLASH_   
  
..._loved you _...  
  
_FLASH_  
  
-_hold on to me -_  
  
_FLASH_  
  
-_my son, our son -_   
  
_FLASH_  
  
..._Remy, I'm so sorry..._  
  
_FLASH_  
  
..._goodbye _-  
  
The world ended.


	4. Downward Spiral

**PART FOUR  
  
ROGUE  
**  
Rogue shot into consciousness, her face wet, her throat sore, her whole body trembling uncontrollably. Bolting upright, she struggled to breathe, to forget the searing blaze, the incinerating nuclear fire. She rocked back and forth, praying for her mind to clear. As she swayed, her mind spun with images she did not understand; then she felt a hand rubbing her back and a soft voice whispering in her ear. "Shh, honey, it's all right, it's all right..."  
  
"I - I don't know what's happening - it wasn't a dream, it wasn't - I'd know if it was - it was real - " she babbled, her shivering increasing. Someone held her very tightly in his lap, murmuring indistinctly into her hair.   
  
Rogue clutched frantically at him, willing her mind to calm down and reorient itself. A sudden wave of vertigo crashed down upon her, and she shut her eyes tightly, a slight moan escaping from between gritted teeth. Through the impressions that reared up before her, she heard a door open and voices speaking in low, rapid tones. Then she was being lifted again, and she grabbed frantically at the air, the room spinning crazily about her.   
  
A hand gripped hers firmly, and she narrowed her focus to that single point of contact. The noise of running water trickled into her ears; then she was lowered gently into a steaming bath. Immediately, her muscles started to relax. In her head, she felt someone moving around, quieting the panic centers until the room righted itself and she was able to open her eyes without retching  
  
"Betsy - thank you..." she slurred, completely exhausted.  
  
A cool hand touched her forehead. "Rogue, these episodes are only getting worse. I'm going to have to go in again, and I think now is as good a time as any." Betsy crouched by the immense bathtub and looked with concern into her best friend's eyes.   
  
Weakly, Rogue managed a nod. "Anythin' to stop it, Bets. I don't know how much more I can handle without going insane." She did not smile. Neither did Betsy. Both were well aware of the gravity of the situation.  
  
Immediately, she felt another hand on her shoulder, and she fumbled up, splashing a bit of water out of the tub as she sought out the hand there.   
  
"I'm here Rogue. I'm not going anywhere." She felt a light kiss on the top of her head and nodded to Betsy.   
  
"Full speed ahead." She closed her eyes and waited for the now-familiar feel of another mind going to work on hers. After a moment, she lapsed into unconsciousness, but not before noting in a tiny corner of her mind, that something red glowed through the darkness of her whirling mind. It flickered restlessly through the maelstrom in her head, leaving pockets of sanity in its wake. Another part of her mind compared it to the lavender sphere that spun lazily in the center of the storm and realized, with faint surprise, that something besides Betsy was inside -  
  
  
She woke slowly, her mind active before her body was ready to respond. Shrouded in darkness, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust before dim outlines gradually resolved themselves into furniture. She lay quietly, allowing her mind to catch up to current events. The last thing she remembered was a vague disorientation, and a bathtub, and Betsy reaching inside her psionically to combat the - episodes, for lack of a better term - that had plagued her steadily over the past year.  
  
A sudden block of light on the floor attracted her attention, and she turned her head to find a figure in the doorway holding a tray.  
  
"Betsy said you were awake. Hungry?" Scott moved out of the doorway to a small table near her bed. Rogue yawned and pulled herself upright with his help.   
  
"How long was I out this time?" she asked, dreading the answer.   
  
"Uh -" Scott suddenly became very interested in the bed tray he was setting up.   
  
"C'mon, sugar, you might as well tell me now." She folded her arms across her chest, and he sighed.  
  
"A week," he muttered. Rogue leaned in a little closer.   
  
"Come again?"   
  
"A week," he repeated, a little louder this time. She slumped against the headboard and groaned.  
  
Immediately she felt his arms around her. "Dammit, Scott, this is driving me crazy! I can't keep goin' through these - these - whatever the hell they are!"  
  
She panted slightly, suddenly exhausted. "I give up."  
  
Scott straightened up, shaking his head. "You're not giving up."  
  
"Says who?" she challenged weakly.  
  
"Says me," a new voice interrupted. They turned to find Logan leaning against the doorway, his customary cigar smoking in one hand. Having gained their attention, he walked right up to the bed and stared Rogue down. After a moment, she glanced away.  
  
"Quit slammin' yourself, darlin'. And quit shuttin' us out. We're here to help ya, but we can't do it unless you help yourself."   
  
"Logan, I don't think she needs -" Scott took a step toward the shorter man to dismiss him, but Logan stopped him with a glare.  
  
"She doesn't need more coddlin' from you, slim. She can take care of herself. You know it, and so does she." He waited for his logic to sink in, and only relaxed when Scott nodded tightly and brushed past him through the doorway.  
  
"I'll get Moira to give you a check-up," he told Rogue on his way out.   
  
She sighed. "Logan, could y'all be a little more confrontational? I don't think he quite got it."  
  
Logan didn't smile at the jibe, but drew up a chair next to the bed and regarded her for a moment.   
  
"What?" she asked.  
  
"I'm just wonderin' what's really goin' on in that head o' yours. Why yer seein' what you see. And most of all, what yer doin' with a square like that," and he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the departed Cyclops.  
  
That elicited a laugh from her. "You're never gonna give that one up, are ya?" she teased. Logan had always watched out for her, from the moment he joined the X-Men to the present. They'd adopted each other as siblings in spite of the age difference. 'Course, half the time his behaviour made her feel as if she was the older one.  
  
He'd never approved of Scott as a suitable match for her. He claimed that Scott had too much baggage from his previous affair with Jean Grey, a fellow teammate who had perished in the thrall of an alien entity known as the Phoenix some years ago. Once upon a time, Rogue had agreed - but things changed, wounds healed, time passed. And once she had gained control over her absorption powers, she was finally free to love whomever she chose. It just so happened that that someone was Scott.  
  
Logan snorted and chewed on his cigar. "I'm serious, girl," he complained. "You got way too much spirit for the likes of him."  
  
"I'm well aware of your position, Logan. I also know that Scott cares about me, and he's been good for me, and there really ain't nothin' y'all can do about it, so give it up, please? I'm too tired to be arguin'."  
  
Logan touched her briefly on the forehead."All right. Listen, I'm wonderin' about somethin' - like when exactly these events started?"  
  
Rogue closed her eyes and tried to remember."A year, I think."  
  
"And when was it that you got control of your powers?"  
  
Rogue frowned, not really following his train of thought. "Well, you know that - when we tussled with that kid who claimed to be from another timeline. What was his name?"  
  
"Nate Grey," Logan supplied.   
  
"Yeah, well, when Nate connected with me, I got pulled into his mind, instead o' the other way around, and he did something in there, and voila - I understood how to do it. O' course then that weird version of Beast showed up and grabbed him and they disappeared. But I still had the on/off switch." She finished and looked up at him. "What does that have t'do with anything?"  
  
Logan rolled his eyes. "Since you're sick, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but it's pretty obvious, if you think about it. You ran into _Nate_ a year ago, too, remember?"  
  
Rogue shrugged. "I guess so."  
  
"So," Logan continued with infinite patience - for him, "maybe you _did_ absorb somethin' from him, after all."  
  
She thought about it for a moment. While she experienced every vision first-hand, she had never had the sense that she was anyone other than herself.   
  
"No, that's not it. I'm _me _in these visions, Logan," she told him flatly.  
  
He frowned."Huh."   
  
They spent a long moment reflecting on her predicament before Rogue spoke up again.   
  
"Hey, I had a weird feeling when Betsy went in for housecleaning."   
  
"What's that?"   
  
"Well, when Betsy's in my head, she shows up as a purple sphere, and before I pass out, I can kinda see what she's doin'. This last time, I saw her, but there was this red smudge in there too - and it was doin' the same thing as she was."  
  
He sat down on the edge of the bed. "So, y'think someone else was paying a visit?"  
  
Rogue shook her head. "No, it felt like it was already there when Betsy arrived. I think I've got someone else in there with me."  
  
"Nate?"  
  
"No! God, no - I'd know if it was him. He'd be makin' a ruckus tryin' to get out. No, it's somethin' else. Who or what, I don't know, but somehow, I don't think they have bad intentions."  
  
Logan harrumphed to himself. "Are you crazy? Something else is in your head, but it's not a bad thing?"  
  
"Yes and yes."  
  
He stood up."All right, I'm gonna leave now, because it's clear you need some more rest." He leaned over and kissed her gently on the forehead. "Now go to sleep."  
  
Her eyes were already drifting shut, overcome with a wave of sudden exhaustion. She barely heard Scott returning, or Moira's calm voice informing them that he'd still be there when she woke again, and that sleep was the best remedy for the moment. She slept.  
  
**  
GAMBIT**  
  
He sat very still as the violet ball of light expanded into a semi-transparent, glittering net that slowly moved around the interior of Rogue's mind and soothed it wherever the net touched. It was a familiar presence, and he knew its owner's identity from the moment it appeared. The problem was, the owner he knew no longer had this capability. Which meant that they had once again jumped into another dimension. Which meant that he was still trapped.  
  
Carefully, he blanked his own mind and concentrated on nothingness until the purple mist had done its job and slowly withdrew back into a purple orb. It gave another whirl, and then disappeared, leaving him feeling curiously unrestrained.   
  
His own mind was very sore and tired, and the memory loss had increased. In the quiet of Rogue's slumber, he allowed himself to recall a few scattered reminiscences, ones that he was fairly sure belonged to him alone. Running through the streets of New Orleans with boyhood friends, a marriage to - to a beautiful woman with blonde hair - who?  
  
He did not know. He had strong feelings for his mystery bride, but he could no longer remember her name or significance. There was something about her death...maybe...  
  
Frustrated, he looked around. The terrifying visions of the age they had transferred from had been contained in one of Betsy's psionic "nets", but other recollections floated freely as she dreamed. They showed him bits and pieces of the life that she lived here, intermingled with shadows from his world. He wondered if this place would resemble anything familiar. It could not possibly be as terrible as the last one. Or so he hoped.  
  
Her mind fluttered around him as she woke slowly and spoke to Scott. Remy clamped down hard on his jealousy, trying to contain the rage he felt at the other man's ministrations to her. As he sat stewing, he muttered to himself about her questionable taste in men, especially if this Scott was anything like theirs. At least Logan agreed with him, and Logan was someone she would listen to - most of the time. He wondered vaguely what the version of him was doing this time around. Head of the Thieves Guild, most likely - or worse. Still married to what's her name? Maybe.   
  
Had Rogue ever met a version of him here? He scrabbled about in her befuddled head for awhile, but came up empty-handed. No, she was completely unaware of his existence outside of her head. This was new and slightly unwelcome. He held onto a theory that if he could come into contact with another version of himself, he might be able to extricate himself from Rogue's mind. Still, she needed him in here, so he was in no hurry to leave. Yet. It all depended on how much he was going to have to suffer from her and Scott's mind-boggling relationship.  
  
Rising from his reverie, Remy poked a cautious tendril of thought outwards. Rogue was speaking to Logan - apparently, she had wakened, though it was odd that he had not noticed right away. He kept half an ear on the conversation, still preoccupied with other thoughts. Logan departed, and he felt Rogue drift off into sleep again.   
  
_Good, chere - you rest. Remy watch over you_.   
  
Quietly, he let his mind drift and watched Rogue's dreams float by. The longer he stayed trapped, the more difficult he found it to hold on to the idea that he was a separate entity. When confronted with the ideas that constantly whirled about in her head, he found himself surprised at how congruent the majority of them were with his own scattered ideology. _Guess we really _are_ made fo' each other_.   
  
A sudden bright image of Scott reared up in front of him, and he started - then groaned in disbelief. Was he the only thing on her mind? _Woman, you killin' me! What you doin'?_  
  
"I'm thinkin'. Got a problem with that?"  
  
Remy would have gaped if he had had a mouth to gape with. Guardedly, and with more than a little skepticism that she had been able to acknowledged him, he answered, _No, course not. Just wonderin' how - _He broke off suddenly. He had to very careful or he might unbalance her completely. Extending mental feelers, he was both surprised and suspicious to find that the invisible barrier confining him had weakened considerably.   
  
Before he could ponder the ramifications of this new and startling development, she cut in. "_You're_ wonderin'? How do ya think I feel, knowin' someone's up there in my head with me? Who are you?"  
_  
Don't suppose callin' m'self yo' conscience is gonna hack it, eh?_  
  
"You're not gettin' off that easy. Just please tell me that I'm not crazy for talkin' to myself!"   
  
_You not crazy. You been through more than yo' fair share of pain and madness, but you still sane. For the moment, anyway.  
_  
"Well, that's a relief. The voice in my head tells me I'm sane, therefore I am." Her words dripped both sarcasm and humor. "So y'all know up there about my visions?"  
  
_Oui, chere. I was there for most of them._  
  
"What, y'mean in my head?"  
_  
And - in the flesh. _  
  
Rogue felt faint."How long've you been up there?"  
  
Gambit hesitated. If he told the truth, she would either A) not believe him, B) believe him, or C) fall over the cliffs of insanity. He didn't know if he could handle any of the three.  
  
"I'm waitin'."  
  
Remy took a breath and decided he had little to lose. _I don't know 'bout time, but I know dat we been through a lot o' livin'. How's dat?  
_  
"You're hidin' something, aren't ya?" she challenged. She cut him off before he could answer. "S'all right for now. I don't know if I could process much more than what you've told me." After a moment, she asked,"So, you can read my mind?"  
  
_Un peu. More like I get impressions and emotions. _  
  
"I don't know if I'm relieved or not."  
  
_Listen, Rogue, I only here to help. To protect. If I could get out, I would, but some things aren't meant t'be. For now, we're stuck wit each other.  
_  
She felt a wave of affection that took the sting out of the thought. _I here cause I -_  
  
He stopped suddenly, aware that someone had been listening to their conversation. Someone who was very interested in the workings of Rogue's addled psyche. Someone whose faint lavender shimmer had, without warning, reappeared almost on top of his own presence. Frantically he backpedaled, this time running for the depths and the relative safety of his prison, hoping that he would be able to hide from its questing presence - because it felt very, very wrong.   
  
  
**ROGUE **   
  
A knock at the door distracted her from her interrogation, and Rogue turned irritably, "Yes?"  
  
The door opened, and Betsy entered smoothly. "Sorry. I thought I heard you talking to someone in here."  
  
Rogue gave a bland smile. "Nah, just - just thinkin' out loud."  
  
Gliding over to her bed, the former assassin narrowed her eyes and gave her an intense once-over. "Scott's really worried about you. I wish Charles was here - he's much better at psionic healing than I am."  
  
"Yeah, well, he chose to go gallivantin' around the galaxy with Lil. If wishes were fishes-" Rogue eyed her companion covertly as the other woman stalked around the room. A particular feeling of unease crept across her - as if Betsy, her oldest friend, her best friend, had suddenly changed.   
  
"We'd all be rich," Betsy finished for her. She pulled over a chair and straddled it, resting her arms across its back. "Or at least well-fed." With practiced nonchalance, she looked around the room, her eyes finally lighting on a framed picture of Ororo Munroe, another teammate. After a moment, she asked, "Did you know that the other team is out on a mission?"  
  
"Without me?" Rogue struggled to sit up, but Betsy restrained her with a hand on her chest and gently pushed her back.  
  
"As if you're in any condition to do anything! No offense, Rogue, but your mind is at a breaking point, and your body's suffering for it. Or hadn't you noticed your complete lack of energy in the past few - oh -_months_?"  
  
Rogue winced. "All right, you win. Now tell me what I've been missing."  
  
"We've had a few run-ins with some kind of extremist group -" she began  
  
"Again?" Rogue interrupted."I thought we took care o' one last week."  
  
Betsy gave her a mock glare."We did. They're not our average run-of-the-mill mutants or human-centric group. They seem to think we destroyed their _species_."  
  
"Which we? We as in the inhabitants of Earth, or we as in the X-Men?" Rogue asked.  
  
Betsy paused, and seemed to be choosing her words with care. "We as in the X-Men. Apparently our last scrap with Apocalypse -" she broke off, noting Rogue's reaction curiously.  
  
At the mention of Apocalypse, Rogue had turned very pale, her blank gaze boring through the wall of the bedroom. Betsy reached over and touched her arm gently.  
  
"What do you see?" she asked in a quiet voice, hoping to pounce on the other woman's subconscious before it locked itself up again. She got more than she bargained for.  
  
"He's got my son, Remy! You let him have my _son_!" Rogue screeched suddenly. Startled, Betsy half-rose when Rogue, caught up in her hallucination, inadvertently sent her crashing across the room with a wild swing, her strength momentarily restored by the grip of her phantasm.  
  
_"YOU SON OF A BITCH! HOW COULD YOU?!" _  
  
Rogue fought against the bedclothes that tangled about her thrashing limbs. She ripped a sheet from her leg and threw herself forward off the bed, somehow managing to land on her feet, as she cursed and punched the air with enough force to kill anyone who got in her way. Across the room, Betsy had twisted in midair and rebounded off the far wall; now she watched warily from her position, ready to move if her friend decided that Betsy represented some kind of threat.  
  
Rogue beat down the air in front of her, falling roughly to her knees, as though she was kneeling on top of someone, and methodically pummeled the floor - until her arms suddenly jerked back as if restrained. Biding her time, Betsy watched as an invisible force held Rogue back; after a moment, the other woman sagged and nodded, listening to whatever the unseen ally was saying. Then she looked at the spot on the floor - which, had it been a person, would have been one in considerable pain - and studied it with a look that could have frozen blood.   
  
After a long moment, she leaned forward and hissed, "You find him. You come with me and you find him, or so help me I'll kill you where you lie." Betsy had little doubt that Rogue meant every word. She looked ready to murder as she stood, panting and wiping the sweat from her forehead, glaring at the carpet all the while. Then, without a backward glance, she turned on her heel and started to walk away.  
  
She only made it one step before her legs crumpled and she fell forward, unconscious. Betsy leapt forward, caught her just before her head would have knocked against the bedpost, and lowered her smoothly to the floor.   
  
  
**GAMBIT**  
  
Closing her eyes, Betsy summoned the sum of her psionic power, which manifested itself as a glowing purple blade. This she carefully eased into Rogue's head. At once, she was assaulted by images of a clarity she had never experienced before, and there were literally millions whirling around. Alarmed by the flow, she tried to find a point to anchor herself, but it was like swimming upstream against a raging river. Buffeted to and fro, she reached out for something, anything -  
  
And nearly died of shock when someone grabbed her hand and pulled her up, out of the stream and into a darker, quieter place. Betsy drew a deep breath and looked around for her savior.  
  
Holding her psi-blade ready, she asked calmly, "Rogue, is that you?  
  
"She's out cold. Don' worry - I watchin' her," a voice spoke behind her. She whirled around and her eyes widened.   
  
"Who the hell are you?"  
  
Remy eyed her for a moment. "You don't know me?" She stared back at him, shaking her head. "Look like I was right. Not an X-Man dis time," he muttered.   
  
Betsy spent a long moment studying him with narrowed eyes, and he got the impression that she found him severely lacking. At the same time, a prickling at the back of his neck informed him that his earlier assessment remained valid. This Betsy didn't quite fit, no matter that they were in a different dimension. Still, she could be an ally...  
  
Remy shrugged. "You want the truth?" Betsy nodded. "Dis Rogue - she ain't your Rogue. Dis ain't her world. I ain't even sure dis is a world, but it's not hers. Or mine. the reason she's losin' her mind is because she been through three lifetimes already, and it can't handle that kind o' stress. And in the last one, she died. Dat be causin' her no end of grief. The world blew up - in dat time, Apocalypse come to power and try to kill everythin'. Rogue and Magneto -"  
  
"_Magneto?_" Betsy cocked an eyebrow.  
  
"Dey be husband and wife." More than a little bitterness leaked out in spite of his vow not to let that raw fact get to him. Betsy caught it but ignored it.  
  
"So how do you fit into the picture?" she asked sharply.   
  
"I don't really know anymore." The words flew out of his mouth without a second thought. He grunted in surprise at the lack of discretion, but then reasoned that he had nothing to hide. Besides, this Betsy was still a telepath; she'd ferret it out of him one way or another.   
  
"Anyway, in the last fight, the humans released their nukes from England, and Apocalypse fired from America, and -" he broke off.  
  
"Boom," Betsy said softly. "No wonder her head's cracking. Her conscious mind doesn't know any of this, right?" Gambit nodded."What else?"  
  
"The firs' time we jumped, she changed into a younger version o' herself. Wit' no powers. You can imagine what dat was like - her bein' able to touch anything and anyone, and not knowin' why dat seemed like a big deal. Cause, y'know, she got no control over her absorbin' in our place."  
  
"How did your minds merge?" Betsy asked suddenly.  
  
Gambit blinked. A big blank spot stood in place of the recollections he had expected to find. It had slowly gnawed away the surface memories of his mind, and now he realized that it had taken away his knowledge of their arrival into this mess in the first place. Groping, he came up with exactly nothing and frowned. They had come to – because of Rogue – and –  
  
"I don' know. I t'ink Rogue was in trouble, and I had to get her out –" but even that sounded unlikely. Maybe they weren't really here at all; maybe this was all some weird dream induced by too much work and not enough play. Maybe  
  
"What's the matter, Cajun? Can't remember?" Psylocke's words, spoken strangely in a mocking tone, hovered between them for a moment as he stared at her.   
  
"No, as a matter o' fact, I can't. Strange, too, chere, cuz I know I was t'inkin' bout dis stuff before you came into the room. So what give, eh?" he challenged.  
  
"You think you're here to help her?" Betsy countered, ignoring the question. He stared at her, frowned, and nodded. "Seems to me like you haven't done much except confuse her even more."  
  
"How d'you know dat?" he demanded, and continued without waiting for her retort. "I didn't ask to be stuck in her head, it jus' happened!"  
  
"What do you want from her?" Betsy had subtly adjusted her stance so that her psychic knife was now pointing directly up under his chin. He backed up a step, feeling the energy field crackle around the weapon.  
  
"I don' want anything _from_ her, I want to help her. What part o' dat don't you understand?" he growled.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because she's in trouble."  
  
"Not good enough. What do you get out of it?"  
  
He glared at her in confusion. "Nothin'. I don' want anythin' 'cept to get her back where she belongs. Which isn't here."  
  
Her violet eyes boring into him, the not-quite Betsy cocked an elegant eyebrow. "You're committing a selfless act?"  
  
"No," he said with complete honesty. "I'm bein' selfish, savin' another human being who drives me nuts on a regular basis, who's as bull-headed as dey come, who may or may not hat my guts when all's said an' done!" he roared, losing his temper. Days of rage and frustration fairly exploded outward in a red borealis of light that shimmered to life around him, flickering brightly.  
  
"Listen t'me, girl. I will do anythin', anythin' at all, to stop what's happenin' to her, do you understand me? I don' care what it takes. She's too important -" The words died on his lips even as he spoke them. _Too important._ But that was the whole problem, wasn't it? The whole time, staring him in the face, and he's been trying too hard to fool himself to see it. There was no such thing as _too_ important where Rogue was concerned. Bewildered by his sudden insight, his anger fading rapidly, he stopped and merely looked at Betsy. She scrutinized him for a moment and he felt a wave of foreignness roll off of her and through him.   
  
The prickling on the back of his figurative neck had increased, and he watched her guardedly. Suddenly Betsy stiffened, her face blank and wooden, while the lavender aura that surrounded the telepath flared and rose, surrounding her. In disbelief, Remy gaped as her form elongated into something large and many-armed, with a prominent proboscis scenting the air around it. Around it, the false purple aura darkened to a midnight blue, and alien thoughts emanated from it.  
  
More than a bit frightened, the Cajun tensed and prepared to fight. The being seemed to study him curiously for a moment; then it opened its mouth and issued a stream of melodic inquiry. The sound wreathed through his mind, and gradually he understood that it had asked a question.  
  
_You are a strange species. Why did you come after the woman? She would have been returned to you unharmed.  
  
_"Unharmed!" Remy roared. "You already mangled her mind - I've seen it! What the hell you doin' to her?"  
  
_Inaccurate assessment, human_, it sang at him. _We are merely studying her, attempting to educate ourselves about the reality of your world -  
  
_"Reality? What you talkin' 'bout?" Remy interrupted, his eyes snapping. "None o' what I seen happened!" Suddenly, some of the pieces of the puzzle clicked and he snapped, "You tellin' me _you_ creating dese lifetimes? Dese alternate universes, or whatever the hell the are? And den runnin' us through like rats in a maze?"  
  
_Yes and no. We took the basic structure of each lifetime from her own memories, though we arranged them to form the parameters of the experiment.   
  
_It took a moment for the significance of its statement to penetrate his turbulent mind; then his eyes widened. "But we _stopped_ Apocalypse - Bishop told us - when Legion died in time..."   
  
For once, the thief was struck speechless. There had been indications of it, of course - Bishop retained memories, Nate Grey was a direct product of it, somehow transferred through space-time in pursuit of two villains of that age. But none of the other X-Men carried the faintest inkling of what could have been - excepting, apparently, Rogue. Rogue, who had because of this madness, cried out day and night for a child that could not exist, terrified by a world that they had managed to prevent. Ice coursed through his veins, and Remy's eyes narrowed in cold fury as another unwelcome revelation occurred.  
  
"Where are we really, homme? We not travellin' at all, hein? We still on dat overgrown pebble in the atmosphere." It was not a question.  
  
The being nodded once. _Your intuition serves you well, human.  
  
_"Release her." Remy's voice was low and steady, but even Sabretooth might have thought twice at its intensity. His staff suddenly manifested in his hand and he gripped it tightly, sinking into a attack stance.  
  
The creature stood observing him placidly. _Aggression will serve no purpose. I am not physical on this plane. I am merely an idea. As, I might point out, are you. _It waited a moment until he saw the concept sink in; then it continued in a placating manner. _I have been an observer in these proceedings; I do not wish to harm you.  
  
_"Can't say I feelin' as generous towards you, ami. You shackled her, you invaded her mind, you screwin' wit' her memories. Don' sound like friendly actions t' me." Remy eased upright again. "Why you botherin' t' talk t' me now?"  
  
_Because she has progressed farther than we anticipated. Her mind has accepted too readily the situations it has been presented with, and taken control of her current actuality. Withdrawal back into the physical plane may shatter her psyche. This was not our intention. _For a wonder, it managed to look sheepish. _Our knowledge of Terran psychology is not as ... comprehensive as we believed.  
  
_"You done dis to her, you fix it!"  
  
_But we cannot. That is why we have summoned you.   
  
_Remy sank into a crouch, shoulders drooping. "No, no, you can' lay dis on me. I'm no telepath, and the chere needs the best if what you say is truth."  
  
_You share a rapport with the subject, human. It may well be that your intervention will be the only thing that can save her. _It eyed him penetratingly as it paused. _Unless you deem the effort unworthy of your sacrifice.  
  
_"Don' fence words wit' me, chien." Remy glared up at the insectoid. "You put me in here, neh?"  
  
Again, a flood of near-music wreathed around in the space between them while the being considered its reply. _Your current position is an unfortunate accident. We never meant for you to come in contact with the subject. This development is most unsettling - the communication sphere was intended to keep you in stasis, but the bond between you and the - woman, is it? - drew you into her psyche. Is this a common occurrence in your dimension?  
  
_Remy grunted. "I'm guessin' no. Sounds maybe like telepathy - I don' know! If you wan' me t'help her, how come you locked me up in a dark corner?"  
  
The being bowed apologetically. _It was for her safety - we realized after the preliminary trial that your mind was independent of the timestream, and as such, retained knowledge of every event you experienced, to some degree. Hers has been programmed to respond and integrate itself into a given situation without question; outside interference would not only have rendered the results invalid, they might also had damaged her psyche irreparably.   
  
_"But dat's what you want me t'do now, non? Even though it might kill her?"  
  
_This one has an exceptionally strong mind. The danger is high, but several extrapolations we've run on the current scenario indicate that survival is possible_ _if the right conditions are set and adhered to.  
  
_Remy sighed in frustration. He thought he understood the gist of it, but sensed that the alien had yet to get to its point. "Spit it out, homme. What I got t'do?"  
  
It hummed to itself for a time before replying. _She must understand that what she is experiencing is not real. She must walk on the edge of insanity and accept that the seeming insanity is in itself her salvation. We never thought to encounter such adaptability in a mind. It is a tribute to your species,_ it commented.  
  
"I gotta convince her to wake up, eh?"  
  
_In essence, yes. But you must do so in a manner exceeding cautionary. We are lifting the block we have imposed on you, but please use your freedom sparingly until you can accommodate her to your presence. Your earlier conversation with her directly could have dangerous repercussions - please do not attempt further direct contact. Do not attack mental walls within her mind - you will only send her into an overload, and she may shut down permanently. It has been suggested that you contact her through her sleep patterns - you call it dreaming?  
  
_"Yeah."  
  
_It may be the best starting point. _It shimmered slightly, and looked inquiringly at him. _Do you understand the gravity of her situation?  
  
_Remy nodded tightly.  
  
_Then you may begin at will.  
  
_"You people an me gon' have a talk 'bout dese experiments when dis is through, y'hear me?" Remy sighed, and cast about for inspiration. He could feel Rogue beginning to wake. Turning back, he was unsurprised to find himself alone.   
  
"_Merde_. I gonna kick some alien ass 'fore dis is done, Roguey."   
  
  
**ROGUE  
  
**In the darkness, Rogue spun wildly out of control, the stars flashing up, down and around until she was too dizzy to do anything but close her eyes and moan. Suddenly an enormous force struck her, and she reversed direction, the disorienting gyrations stopping as her body righted itself and zoomed backwards. She turned her head vainly, trying to see what had caught her, but all she could get was an impression of a huge dark mass looming over her -  
  
Abruptly the scene vanished and a sense of calm smoothed out the tension coiled in her muscles. Gradually another place came into focus, somewhere that also felt familiar, though in a far less disturbing manner. A carriage drawn by two Morgan horses. A crisp, clear autumn night in a park - in a city - She strained to remember where, but a wave of soothing well-being whispered that where was not important, and she let the thought drift on. Inside, she sat with a man of shadows, but she was not afraid. His presence felt comfortingly familiar, and she did not wince when he eased an arm around her shoulders and drew her into his side. Her cheeks warmed pleasantly as he leaned close to her ear and whispered, "Chere, it's time to awaken."  
  
Her eyes snapped open, the words still echoing in her mind. Strangely, the last part of the dream did not fade, but seemed to increase, at least to the point that she was certain she would not soon forget it. Something about the voice -  
  
The voice of the dream was the voice in her head. Blinking at this interesting discovery, she lay very still, considering. She did not believe that the voice triggered her last episode, and so had not mentioned it to anyone, knowing she was walking a thin line towards the loony bin as it was. Aside from Betsy's psionic balm, she had refused any kind of psychiatric drug for fear of falling deeper into the haze of her splintered psyche than she already had.   
  
There it was again! A faint, vague impression of an outside rationality that was communicating with her from within, agreeing with her assessment. She tried to focus on that place of otherness, but it faded even as she locked onto it.  
  
"Fine, then, be that way. Aw, hell - any minute the nice men in white coats are gonna show up anyway; I'm about ready t' surrender."   
  
There was a faint resurgence of awareness that insinuated reproof at her self-doubt. _Trust me,_ it seemed to tell her before again winking out.  
  
"All right, all right. For the moment. Have it your way." Weakly, she tossed aside the bedclothes and tottered to her feet just as Scott opened the door.  
  
"Oh, hon, wait - let me help you," he told her and quickly moved to her side to support her. She shot him a wry grin, a little annoyed, but holding it in check. It was only Scott being overanxious Scott, after all.  
  
"And here I am, the invulnerable strong-woman of the team, and I can barely make it two steps without my knees bucklin'. Just goes to show ya that God _does_ have a sense of humor."   
  
Laughing, Scott picked her up. "That's all right - I love any excuse to hold you."  
  
Rogue kissed him lightly. "It is kinda nice playin' the damsel in distress, even if'n it was a command performance, as such."  
  
His smile faded and he set her down on the edge of the bed. "Moira still can't pinpoint a source of this - disturbance. The only thing he can relate it to is -" he broke off, frowning.  
  
"What?" she prodded.  
  
"Multiple Personality Disorder. Except that you don't seem to be changing personalities, just - lifetimes."  
  
"I wonder if my past lives are comin' back to haunt me?" she pondered, only half-joking.  
  
Scott shook his head. "Only they don't seem to be past lives, from what we've heard. Just - different."  
  
Rogue gave a little groan, and he gathered in close to him. "Will somebody just give me a lobotomy and be done with it!"  
  
"That's not funny."  
  
She glared up at him. "Who says I was kiddin'? I'm certifiable as it is, even Moira would admit to that if ya pushed her hard enough. I forget things, I see other people in place of the ones in front o' me - the list goes on. I can't go on missions because I'm too much of a liability -"  
  
Scott interrupted her. "You can't go out because you don't have the strength. This thing is draining you too much. Anyway, with Mystique back and Quicksilver filling in the tight spots we're managing. Work is not an option, and you know it - you're just too weak."  
  
Struggling again to her feet, she put out a hand to stop him from pulling her back down, her eyes flashing. "All right, I get the picture, Scott. I'm weak. Fine. I'm goin to bathe this weak body of mine in a hot shower and massage my weak skull t' get rid of this never-endin' headache, and then I'm gonna haul my weak self down to the kitchen and feed it breakfast."  
  
"Lunch," he corrected absently. He never understood these periods of anger directed at him; as usual, he attributed it to her ordeal and ignored them.  
  
With great effort of will, she managed not to throw something at him and hissed, "Lunch. In the meantime, I think I'd like t'be alone, all right?"  
  
He stood and kissed her lightly on the forehead. "See you downstairs." With a distracted smile, he left .  
  
Rogue closed her eyes and counted to ten, and then counted to ten again. In the past few weeks, Scott had grown increasingly irritating to her - all of his careful ministrations notwithstanding. In fact, they were part of the problem. She had never been sick and hated to be mother-henned in moments of weakness. The past month, as the occurrences had increased in severity, she had not only had to survive the experience but the good intentions of her teammates as well. Only Ororo and Logan had the common sense to treat her normally, not as though she was a piece of crystal on a one-way trip towards a cement floor destiny.   
  
"I'm a fighter, not a lover," she quipped grimly under her breath as she pulled off her nightshirt on the way to the shower. "And I refuse to go nuts."  
  
A half hour later, she meandered slowly downstairs, her system already flagging, and she knew she would need a good nap after her meal. Making a simple sandwich took an eternity, and by the time she finished it, she felt as though she had pulled an all -nighter in the Danger Room. Putting her plate carefully in the sink, she wandered into the library, hoping to find a good read to keep her company and perhaps stave off sleep a while longer.  
  
After long minutes of perusing the shelves, she settled on a battered copy of _The Princess Bride_, planning to test the theory that laughter is the best medicine. She made it through a few chuckles before she nodded off and once more fell into dreamland.  
  
This time she stood atop a hill of carnage, clutching a two-year old boy and a man she knew to be her husband, though she could not see his face. They faced East, towards thousands of approaching pinpricks of light that she somehow knew were not stars at all but something far more sinister. Holding her tightly, his long silver hair mingling with her own, he tried vainly to shield them as the bombs hit. A brightness as brilliant as a thousand supernovas burned her eyes, followed by a wave of intense heat, but just before it touched her, she was yanked away into another place.  
  
She looked around, breathing hard, the paralyzing fear of the attack barely starting to diminish. Around her rose the skeleton of a run-down theater, its house bare, the stage falling to pieces. Ragged curtain remnants fluttered in the drafty hall; bats swooped by overhead.   
  
Suddenly a presence was behind her, and she whirled, surprised but not frightened. The man from the carriage, whose voice she knew, stood backlit by a single functioning gaslight. He made no move to approach her, merely held out his gloved hand. She looked at it curiously, noting the glove's peculiar design: the middle two fingers were covered, leaving the thumb, index and pinky fingers bare. To promote dexterity, she knew, agility to draw things out and throw them - to draw out - what?   
  
Again a presence tickled her mind, urging her to trust her instincts, which were agreeing with the voice. Still, she hung back, the scene all too familiar for some reason, and one that pricked of ill consequences.   
  
_I've been here before. I've done this before, and something went wrong.   
  
_The man picked up on her doubt and froze; then his body slumped and he looked for all the world like he was mentally kicking himself. She thought she heard him mutter, "Stupid idea - o' course she'd remember dat. Have t' try somethin' else."  
  
Rogue slowly backed away and turned around. On all sides, the walls of the theatre dissolved as she fled towards wakefulness. She did not see the pain in his eyes as he watched the event replay itself - as in life, so in dreams.  
  
  



	5. Barrel of Pain

**PART FIVE  
  
GAMBIT**  
  
Abandoned, he withdrew into a dark spot and thought.  
  
Days passed.  
  
He remembered.  
  
The time she had, laughing, dunked him, fully clothed into the pool. When she had gone blind as a result of absorbing Cyke's power, and how he had been determined to earn her trust by becoming her guide. The betrayal in her eyes as she flew away from him, leaving him so very alone in Seattle. In Antarctica.   
  
Suddenly, he felt a little less than friendly toward his mind-mate. Things had occurred for which they forgave each other with words, but he wondered how much absolving either one of them had done in their hearts. Truthfully, he'd been a part of something brutally and ferociously wrong, but he would carry the burden of that guilt with him for the rest of his life as punishment, while she _Her_ sins, her former alliance with Mystique's mutant terrorists, had been all but washed away in the following years until she had reached a kind of absolution -  
  
Nevertheless, wasn't that something of a moot point now? They had wronged each other, yes; but they had gotten past it to the truth of the situation, which was that they loved each other. Right? Still a little hostile, Remy brooded over that fine point for a moment.   
  
_Why the hell would we torture each ot'er so much otherwise, neh? I love her, she love me, we all one big happy fam'ly_  
  
_And if you b'lieve dat one, ami, I got a great bridge I'd love to sell you. _He blew out a gust of air. _What's the matter wi' me? When am I gonna stop questionin' everythin' I _know_ is beyond question?  
  
_Remy looked out through her awareness. Now, she was lying quietly in her bed, her face to the window, absorbing the last rays of sunset. Out of the corner of her eye, he could just glimpse a creamy, lightly muscled arm and the light blue sheet she had pulled up to her chin. Her thoughts were sleepy and disjointed, and over everything was a pall of weariness from which she seemed unable to rouse herself.   
  
This trial of jumping into and out of personas, while taking its toll on his battered id, had clearly begun to destroy hers thoroughly. No longer could she distinguish when she was, much less where or which role she played. Sometimes when Scott came to her, she thought he was Bobby, which confused everyone a whole lot, and nearly caused the Iceman in this time to be fried by a well-aimed optic blast. Fortunately, Remy had been able to wrench Rogue's consciousness back to the present in time to prevent that catastrophe. Secretly he wondered what the result would be if she ever mentioned Magnus - somehow, he thought that would make for a very entertaining night indeed.  
  
Only that afternoon, Rogue had awakened vague and confused after a friend of Storm's had brought her baby son to visit. Half of the team had been lazing around the pool on a rare day of quiet, Rogue included, trying to soak up some kind of sustenance from the early autumn sun. She claimed the sunshine healed her, that her head was clearer outside than in; it was a phenomenon that Ororo attested to, and Moira reluctantly admitted might help. So, although the summer days had barely faded into early fall, Rogue had lain weakly in her lounge chair, wrapped in blankets to fight off the chill that seemed to wrack her body.  
  
Asleep upon Ororo and Meggan's arrival, the baby's cooing and laughter had quickly invaded her dreams. Scott was away on a mission, but Logan was there by her side to monitor her - so that at her first whimper, he reached over and grasped a gloved hand in his own.   
  
"Rogue, what is it?"  
  
Across the pool, Ororo and Meggan chatted gaily on, unaware of Rogue's plight. The baby gurgled and squealed as Ororo tickled his tummy, but at the happy noise, tears began to run down from beneath Rogue's closed eyelids. Logan brushed them away carefully, attempting to wake his friend.  
  
Lowering his voice further, he murmured into her ear, "What is it, darlin'? What do you see?"  
  
She seemed to strain against her emotions, still wrapped in her dreams, moaning softly, "Baby boywhere are you? Where's my baby?"  
  
Logan started in surprise and sat back on his heels. What was she mumbling about? He had no recollection of her ever mentioning family or children – where was this coming from?  
  
From inside, Remy watched the foul play of events repeating within her dreams – the shattering impact of the loss of her child, their reunion, the end of that world. Helpless behind the walls barring him from interference, he nonetheless reached out with all of his heart to try to calm her but her anguish was too overwhelming.  
  
As she fell deeper, Logan began to slap her face gently, trying to bring her out of it. By this time, Ororo had realized that there was a problem, and rushed over to help. Together they attempted every method of waking her they could think of, but to no avail. Trapped in her nightmares, Rogue sank deeper into the pseudo-reality, crying for her child, her Charles –  
  
Suddenly, Meggan appeared at Ororo's side and moved past her to set her son on Rogue's lap. Abruptly, the torrent of pain smoothed away from her face and she cuddled the little boy, who cooed happily up at her. All at once, her eyes flashed open and she blinked in confusion, unable to place her surroundings.   
  
"Where – what -?" she began to ask, but the baby had grasped for a tendril of her hair and she stopped in surprise at the tiny burbling figure clinging to her. Automatically, she brushed a gloved finger against his face and he smiled, his toothless, chubby face delighting her and crushing her at the same time.  
  
"You were dreamin' girl – so deep we couldn't wake ya up, til Meggan put Mikey there in your lap," Logan informed her. He put a hand on her shoulder. "You were cryin' for a baby, Rogue – do you remember?"  
  
Rogue froze. "I what?" she asked softly.  
  
Ororo touched her forehead. "Your mind is so confused – you were looking for your son, but Rogue- " she broke off and bit her lip.  
  
"I don't have a baby," Rogue finished softly. She looked down at little Michael whose sunny disposition had clouded at all of the heaviness emitting from the grown-ups. To reassure him, Rogue touched his cheek again and gave him a last cuddle before handing him back to his mother. He watched her with curious eyes, but gave a sleepy smile and drifted off on his mother's shoulder.  
  
"I _remember_ having a baby, Ro. I remember holdin' him in my arms for the first time, I remember that someone stole him from meI remember these things like they were real, but they couldn't have been"   
  
Rogue trailed off, lines of bittersweet joy etching into her face. Suddenly she looked older than her twenty-five years, older and hard-worn. "I had a husband and a lover once, and the sweetest baby boy there ever was, but something killed them, killed all of us –" Her head drooped and she raised herself slowly from her chair, gathering her blankets around her like a shroud. "I'm sorry t'cause such a commotion. I think I need to be alone for a bit."   
  
Her teammates had watched with troubled eyes as she made her way haltingly the few feet to the patio door and vanished inside of the mansion.   
  
Now she lay drifting in and out of a grey netherworld, assaulted by visions of things that had never occurred to her in this place, this portion of reality. As the last rays of sun faded, Remy came to a decision. Bringing her to him had not proved all that effective. It was time to go to her. He waited as the torment began, reluctant to interfere unless absolutely necessary this time. Gradually, her mind fled from them, and moved to a place he had not witnessed before. Cautiously, he took a step out into her repose and then stopped to gain his bearings.  
  
She dreamed of a summer evening, watching dusk fall by the stream that ran across the mansion's property. Sitting on its bank, she had withdrawn deeply away from the nightmares that plagued her, to this, her last refuge from insanity. He hated to break her illusions, and he hesitated, wondering how to approach her without tipping her over the brink.  
  
Absently, she trailed a hand in the brook, relishing its cool, smooth feeling. A warm breeze ruffled her hair, whipping long wavy tendrils across her face. He remembered the day she had chopped off the heavy mass to her shoulders, her enjoyment at the look of shock on his face. "Y'all want it, y'all can take care of it. Me, I can do without that tangle for awhile," she had informed him, a mischievous smile playing about the corners of her mouth.   
  
Of course, he thought she looked beautiful no matter what she did to herself, and the shortened locks were an attractive frame for her strong-featured face. Still, sometimes he missed running his fingers through that glorious mass, and now here it all was again. With considerable effort, he stopped himself from reaching out to do just that.  
  
Now she brushed the offending hair out of her eyes and rested her chin on her hand, staring out into the dusky woods beyond the stream. Remy took a step out of the woods and cleared his throat. She glanced over at him, her eyes widening. Quickly, she scrambled to her feet, uncertainly backing a few steps away from him.  
  
"What's going on? Who are you?" she blurted, her face pale. He stopped moving immediately and stood quietly, loosely, his hands palms-up.  
  
"Chere, you remember me?" he asked slowly.  
  
At the sound of his voice, she relaxed a little. "You're the man in the dreams, the voice in my head."  
  
"Dat'd be me."  
  
She sat down again. "So you are real?" He nodded. "And you're really here?" Again, he assented, chancing a step closer to her.  
  
"I don' mean t'scare you, but I needed t'talk to you and I've had a hell of a time gettin' to you."  
  
She frowned. "What do you mean?"  
  
"I got stuck b'hind some kind o' mental walls someone erected in here, but they allowed me t'break through. They wanted t'help me help you." While speaking, he had moved to within a few feet of her; now he crouched a little ways away.  
  
"They who?" she wanted to know.  
  
Remy took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of the stream, the meadow, and the forest across from them. It was a wild, earthy smell, and a part of him marveled at the precision of her sense memory. He looked down at his hands, freed from their gloves for the first time in a long while. Blinking, he realized that while he had imagined himself to be in uniform, here, he was dressed merely in a pair of faded blue jeans and a worn green T-shirt. His fiddlin' clothes, he called them – the clothing he wore to mess with his motorcycle, or play basketball, or just to laze around the house in. Some part of her remembered, then, for she had seen him dressed so on many occasions.  
  
He looked up to meet her curious eyes and remembered the question. "You don't know me at all?" he asked softly.   
  
A frown creased her forehead as she studied him for a long moment. "I – I do, but I can't place you."  
  
"Think, chere. Concentrate." He watched her labor to sift through a miasma of tangled memories before giving up with a cry.  
  
"I don't know! I can't tell. I see more than one of you, and I don't know what's real!" She turned her face away, panting slightly from exertion. "I can't make anything make sense, d'you understand? I see so many things, horrible things – and I see glimpses of lives that I remember, that aren't possible. There are so many versions of – of everyone, and I can't remember what's real here and now – " Hugging her knees to her chest, she halted, lost for words.  
  
He waited in silence for her to calm herself and put the pieces together. After a moment, her face cleared and she looked up. "Remy?" she asked, drawing the name out cautiously. "Is your name Remy?"  
  
Nodding, he kept his expression carefully blank, trying to ignore the sudden clenching of excitement in his stomach. Again she concentrated, beads of perspiration gathering on her brow.   
  
"You – we're X-Men? So that's true." Remy nodded confirmation. "But I knew you before – in the place that Apocalypse destroyed," she murmured in confusion.  
  
"Rogue," he gently redirected her attention to himself. "Dat was another place. Dat person wasn't me. Not exactly. More like who I could've been, if t'ings hadn't turned out the way dey did." As her creased forehead smoothed, he congratulated himself silently in deflecting that memory. Of course, it had been that alter ego who had inadvertently lost Rogue's baby in that other time, betrayed by a teammate – and he didn't want her to connect that person with him. Ever.   
  
Now, he leaned forward and tucked a finger under her chin. At his touch, her eyes widened. "For some reason, I think that this should be impossible," she told him weakly.  
  
"Dat because it is, in our world. But I'm t'inkin' maybe it don't have to be – here, in dis place, you learned how to control yo' abilities, and maybe dat knowledge don't have to be lost, neh?"  
  
"In our world?"  
  
Remy winced. "Didn't mean it t'come out dat way - but yeah, in our world. Chere, dis ain't real. You dreamin' right now. Y'know dat, right?"  
  
Rogue looked around, her face resigned. "I know."  
  
"But what you don' know is dat the wakin' world you in ain't real either." Remy touched her forehead gently. "No matter how real it seem, it's not. You gotta believe me. Dat's why yo' head's all confused – you been manipulated into" he trailed off at the skepticism evident in her face.  
  
"First y'all ask me to believe that you're the voice in my head, then you expect me to turn tail on the one piece of realness I get my hands on because it _ain't_ real? How do I know you're real? What is real?" She stood abruptly and walked a few steps away. "It hurts all the time, Remy, not knowin' up from down, dreams from reality – I can't go on like this, my head'll explode!" She rubbed her temples, frowning.  
  
"Please, listen t'me Rogue." At the sound of her name she turned in his direction, though she maintained her distance. "You got to trust me on dis, dey tol' me I have to make you trust me before we can get you out of here."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"I don' know – whoever trapped us here in – wherever we are." He cursed his own failing memory and struggled to draw forth at least one point to lay before her. Images flashed through his mind's eye, but all of them pertaining to their journey, and precious little before. Suddenly, he glimpsed a flash of lavender; then, a strong presence probed his mind. After a moment of rooting around, the psychic emanation flashed in front of his eyes, and he remembered piloting the rescue skip-boat millennia ago. He could feel the joystick in his hand, saw the control panels spark wildly and blink out one by one; he saw the asteroid swallowing his tiny ship as a great burst of green light enveloped him –  
  
"Asteroid. Dere was a mission – rescue mission to the space shuttle – " he struggled. "You were tryin' to get information out o' the computer banks when the shuttle started to disintegrate, and the asteroid sucked you in." He paused, giving unspoken thanks to the lavender presence in his mind, which performed a mental bow before disappearing.  
Across from him, Rogue stared off into the distance, assimilating his stuttered explanation and trying halfheartedly to correlate it with anything in her fractured mind. With a gasp, she clapped a hand over her mouth as an unexpected, brutal sensation of lying trapped beneath metal bonds and a strange helmet swept through her body. She stumbled forward a step, but Remy darted forward and caught her before she fell.   
  
As he steadied her, he asked, "What did you see?"  
  
"Metal bands a slab o' somethin' cold. I couldn't move a muscle, and there was this thing on my head that hurt my brain – And then there was a flash of light, and my whole body hurt." She spoke mechanically as if describing something that had happened to someone in another life - which was not entirely inaccurate.  
  
"Dat's what we got to get you out of. "  
  
"Oh no, I couldn't – it hurt so much," she moaned, rubbing her head again. Remy studied her in growing concern, wondering if this was presage to another bout of demons.  
  
Taking her arm, he guided her to the stream and knelt down. "Look in the water," he ordered. A little dazed, she complied, and Remy placed his hands on either side of her head and concentrated. While his telepathy was primitive at best, sharing her mind as he had for so long, he thought he be able to make similar illusory alterations to her as she had with his clothing. Focusing, he grabbed hold of the last time he had seen her in the outside world, and imposed that image onto the figure beside him. Hearing a quick intake of breath, he opened his eyes and was not disappointed.  
  
Rogue knelt beside him, her hair now shoulder-length and straight, arrayed in her uniform: a dark green bodysuit with a gold X criss-cossing her front and back. Completing the garb were long gold gloves, knee-high gold boots, and a metal plated neck guard that rose from the bisection of the X on her chest and ended under her chin. She touched the guard in wonder, and then raised a hand to her radically changed hairstyle.  
  
"What the hell did I do to myself?"   
  
"You thought it was time fo' a change. Not dat I minded," he commented.  
  
Cocking an eyebrow, she turned to look at him. "Am I suppose to care?"   
  
With a broad grin, Remy replied, "Now dat's soundin' like the girl I –" He cut himself off. Getting into the nuts and bolts of their sticky relationship would only complicate matters. "– the girl I know," he amended a little lamely.  
  
She didn't look as though she was quite buying it, but she let it go. "Y'know, this feels right, but I can't really get a good handle on it."  
  
"I t'ink all you gotta do is believe. You gotta trust me dat what I'm tellin' you is the truth, and den you gotta convince your mind dat it's gotta wake up. It not gon' be easy, but I'll try t'help from up here."  
  
She acquiesced with a dip of her head, her body shimmering slightly. "I feel so disoriented – I think I'm startin' t'wake up."  
  
Hastily, he clutched her arms. "You remember dis, chere – you remember everyt'ing we talk about, hein?"  
  
Her eyelids drooping, she shook her head,. "'M tryin', sugar. It's all getting' so hazy, though"  
  
Frantically racking his brains, Remy swiftly hit upon the one thing he did that always made a lasting impression. With more speed than grace, he pulled Rogue to him, looked deeply into her dazed eyes, and then quickly covered her mouth with his own. Had they had more time, the kiss could have reached into the depths of the zeal with which she responded - but suddenly, she faded out of his arms, and he was left in a dark place, his arms empty.   
  
  
**ROGUE  
  
**At first, she was so groggy with sleep that she could not immediately identify what had awakened her. She sat rubbing her eyes, thinking about the odd memory of a kiss lingering on her lips. With a shake of her head, she looked around the shadowed room. Beside her, Scott turned restlessly, mumbling something about motorcycles. Quietly and with a minimum of movement, she slid from beneath the bedclothes and stood, feeling her way through the dark for her robe.   
  
In the distance, a rumble of voices seemed to approach her room. The fine hair on the back of her neck stood up suddenly – she couldn't put a finger on it, but she had the intense urge to alert the mansion. Stumbling over to the phone, she picked it up – no dial tone.   
  
Fully awake and alarmed, she leaned over and shook her slumbering boyfriend. "Scott – wake up! Something's wrong."  
  
He grumbled sleepily and asked, "What?"  
  
"Someone's here. The phone isn't working. My sixth sense is goin' nuts. Wake up!" She pulled at his arm. After a moment, her comments finally registered, and he shot to his feet, heading toward the closet and his uniform. She followed him, reaching for her own, but he put out a hand to stop her.  
  
"Rogue, no. You're not even at half-strength these days. I can't put you in danger," he told her.  
  
For once, she didn't lose her temper; she merely stared him down. "Scott, lover – I appreciate that, I really do. Now get out of my way."  
  
With an unusual show of force, she yanked her arm away easily and slipped into the navy blue body suit, strapping on gauntlets and body armor as she went. With a sigh, he pulled on his own uniform, and tossed her a golden communications badge emblazoned with the familiar black and red team logo.  
  
As she moved to open the door, though, he grabbed her hand and pulled her to him, kissing her fiercely.   
  
She blinked, taken aback. "What was that for?"  
  
"I want you to stay here until I call you. Will you do that for me? Please, Rogue – you can't waste your strength- "  
  
Rogue glared. "Listen, bub, I'm goin' with you. What's the point of stayin' here and waitin' t'get fried by whatever's in this house with us?"  
  
She was right, of course – and more than that, he knew it was an argument she would win by sheer stubbornness. "When you start sounding like Wolverine, I know I can't win." He sighed. "At least take a pistol, please? And no hand-to-hand if you can absolutely avoid it. That's an order."  
  
Stalking back to the closet, she reached up to the top shelf and withdrew her energy pistol and holster, checking to make sure the weapon was fully charged. In a moment, she rejoined him, gun strapped firmly to her leg.   
  
"Happy?" she asked, trying to fight the growing weariness already threatening to sneak through the adrenaline rush.  
  
"It'll do. Come on."   
  
He opened the door silently and peeked an eye around the corner. The hallway   
looked dark and empty, but there were plenty of hiding spaces in the shadows. One hand to his visor, he stepped cautiously out into the hall, flattening himself against the wall. Behind him, Rogue crouched, straining to see through the gloom.   
  
The nearest room to theirs belonged to Logan, so they edged their way with a minimum of noise in that direction. At his door, they realized someone had beaten them to the punch. The frame was mangled, and the interior looked as though a hurricane had descended. Not a stick of furniture was whole, and shredded fabric fluttered everywhere. Most disturbingly, there was no sign of Logan. No claw marks, no eviscerated enemies, nothing.  
  
From out of nowhere sailed a glowing pink object that exploded as it hit the floor. The impact threw both of them back into the wall, but they were able to rebound and twist away without suffering any damage. From behind the shattered doorway, Scott let loose with a couple of optic blasts in the direction of the missile. More glowing objects rained down towards them, but Rogue was able to shoot down most before they got too close.   
  
As Scott returned fire, Rogue slapped her combadge. "Blue team report in."  
  
After a long moment, Logan replied, "Rogue, where are you?"  
  
"Scott and I are stuck in your room, pinned down. Whoever's out there's turnin' everything into bombs," she shouted over the noise.  
  
She heard the sounds of combat over the badge as he grunted and apparently swung at something. After a startled cry, there was silence, and Logan replied, "On my way. I'll come up behind them."  
  
Moments later, the bombing stopped abruptly with the trademarked SNIKT of Logan's claws. They heard a strangled moan and a wet, dripping sound. Logan called an all clear, and Scott and Rogue appeared. She moved towards the still form on the floor and prodded it with a boot to turn it over.   
  
"Anyone we know?" Logan asked, scanning the hallway for more unwelcome visitors. When he didn't get an answer, he focused on Rogue, whose face was rapidly draining of color. "You all right?"  
  
Horrified, Rogue closed her eyes, trying to block out the almost-familiar face staring up at her, its red-on-black eyes already glazing over with death. With great effort, she regained control and stepped back, holding up a hand to forestall questions while she did a rapid body-check on herself. When she opened her eyes again, she was able to grate out an explanation.  
  
"He was someone I knew - before -Not now...Not like this...I don't really know who he is, not here," she stuttered.  
  
Scott gave her an odd look but let it go, withdrawing a small scanner from a pocket somewhere on his uniform. He ran it over the corpse and allowed it to take a reading. Finishing, he pocketed the device and asked, " Where are the others?"  
  
Logan shrugged. "I don't know. I heard something from the front of the house -" He stopped and sniffed the air. "'Yana's there, with...Berto, I think."  
  
"Go find them. Rogue and I are heading to the ready room to pinpoint the rest. I'll have Cerebro run the numbers on our dearly departed," here he nudged the body with the toe of his boot, "and see if it can turn up any information. Do you know who you took down?"  
  
"Huge guy, some kind o' ruby in his helmet -"  
  
"Juggernaut?" Scott frowned. "What's he doing here?"  
  
"Makin' a mess, far as I c'n tell." Logan started off down the hall at a fast trot. "I'll get the rest of the team down to the ready room," he called over his shoulder.  
  
Rogue and Scott exchanged a glance and moved on, heading now toward the ready room in the basement. As they crept swiftly down the stairs, they kept their senses on red alert, looking for intruders. They made it to the sub-basement with no interference, and approached the command center, tension high. On either side of the doorway, they shared another glance before Scott addressed the computer pad on his side.  
  
"Cerebro, register Cyclops voice code recognition."  
  
"Acknowledged," a disembodied voice informed them from a speaker in the panel. The door slid open, and Rogue rolled through, landing on her feet in a crouch, pistol at the ready. Scanning the room, it took a moment to realize that the room was empty. With a groan, she threw herself into a chair as Scott moved to the mainframe.  
  
"Cerebro, list current locations of X-Men." The main viewscreen hummed to life, and a green-on-black floorplan of the mansion popped up. A few seconds later, blips appeared indicating the positions of Wolverine, Storm, Magik, Iceman, Psylocke, Quicksilver, and Sunspot. Neither Moira nor Mystique appeared anywhere on the display, but Rogue forced herself not to worry about their sole doctor and Charles' second-in-command. It was obvious that their teams were surrounded and on the defensive, and without hesitation they whirled out and pelted back the way they came, informing Logan of the change in plans as they ran.  
  
They met up again with Logan in the main hall off the entrance. He was bloody and mad as hell, but his healing factor was already hard at work on the superficial wounds covering his upper chest. "Nice of you t'join us," he growled. "Duck!" he yelped, and pushed Rogue to the ground in time to feel the heat of a laser beam singeing her cheek.   
  
"What the hell is goin' on?" she yelled.  
  
"They got around us, ambushed us just as I caught up with 'Yana." He paused to deal with an onrushing Riptide, ducking under the other mutant and using leverage to heave him through the wall. At that moment, Illyana Rasputin teleported to the little group, breathless and covered in blood - most of it not hers.   
  
"Cyke, we got problems, here!" she yelped. "Sabretooth's heading for Cerebro - tossed Sunspot aside like he was a fly. Bobby's hurt pretty bad -"   
  
"Get him to the medbay and stay with him. Hole up there and wait for a signal before you go anywhere, got it?" Rogue ordered. The younger woman nodded and flashed out, giving them a brief glimpse of Limbo before the portal closed. Tapping her badge, she called for Quicksilver. In a blur of motion, he skidded to a stop, an unconscious Psylocke in his arms.   
  
"We ran into Sabretooth," he informed them. "Bets tried to sink her psi-knife into him, but he saw her coming at the last minute and -" Gesturing wordlessly to the gaping wounds slicing across her midsection and legs, he shook his head. "On my way to medbay."  
  
"Illyana's already there with Sunspot, but we're going to need you - come back quick," Scott told him. With a nod and a rush of wind, he vanished out of sight. Logan growled deep in his throat.  
  
"Two down, three outta the fight - These guys are takin' us apart," he spat. "This is embarrasin'."  
  
Another explosive round of energy burst cut off his diatribe and the three were forced to concentrate on defending their position for the next few minutes. Whoever their enemy was, they had resorted to weapons over powers, though Rogue doubted they were lacking in that area. Something else was definitely afoot, and she needed that knowledge before they all ended up in traction - or six feet under.   
  
Surreptitiously, she slipped off her gloves and concentrated to switch her absorption ability to the "on" position. That act alone drained her almost completely of the small energy reserve she had managed to build up, but she gritted her teeth and commanded her body to function. After a reluctant moment, it responded sluggishly and she felt strong enough to attempt phase two of her plan.  
  
Quicksilver pounded up with Iceman and Storm in tow. Turning to Wolverine, Rogue asked, "Logan, how many bad guys're we dealin' with over there?"  
  
His nostrils flared as he scented through the haze of burning furniture and the acrid stink of ozone from the weapons. "Three - no two of 'em. Third one just left - must be circlin' around to come in behind us."  
  
Eyes narrowed, Rogue asked, "I need you to flush one of 'em for me - think y'all can get to that last one, drive him toward us?"   
  
"No sweat, darlin'." Springing his claws, he loped silently off. Seconds later, they heard a muffled curse and the sound of approaching, cautious footsteps. Gesturing for the others to hide themselves, Rogue mustered her strength and jumped straight up, grabbing onto one of the ancient cross-beams supporting the cathedral ceiling and pulling herself up into its shadows. Once there, she crouched like a bird of prey, waiting.  
  
The payoff came soon enough in the form of a dark figure gliding quietly along the hallway. She let him pass just beyond her position; then with a curdling yell calculated to startle, she leapt from her perch, driving him to the ground. Caught completely off-guard, her opponent never had a chance as she clamped her hands on either side of his head, letting her natural abilities do the rest. Immediately, a flood of information tore through her, and they howled together as his power drained out. Seconds later, his senseless body thudded to the ground as Rogue tried to grasp the new sensations coursing through her.   
  
"They're after Cerebro's files - they're tryin' t'pin us down while Sabretooth and someone named Kitty gets the downloads. We better hurry - this guy seemed to think the girl was some kind of computer whiz. I can take Scott - Storm, you get Logan. We'll get there first and try to head 'em off."  
  
Storm quirked an eyebrow at her. "And what about the two ahead of us?"   
  
With a grim smile, Rogue told her, "They're just our old friends Colossus and Malice. I trust y'all can handle 'em?"  
  
"Let's go," Quicksilver snarled. With him, it would be sheer retribution - Malice had killed his wife in a conflict several months ago. Joining the X-Men to find consolation and distraction, he had also been waiting for this moment. Rogue doubted very much Malice would survive the encounter.   
  
He raced off as Storm summoned the wind to lift her and Logan. "How you gonna get to the command center?" he yelled to Rogue over the gale.  
  
"This guy was a teleporter," she shouted back and she caught a glimpse of his grin before he and Storm vanished around a corner. Humming with stolen energy, she wrapped her arms around Scott and told him to hang on. Then, clearing her mind, she focused on the ready room with the greatest attention to detail she could induce. When the power reached its peak, she directed it to the location in her mind; and, with a BAMF! of smoke and the stink of brimstone, they teleported.  
  
A second later, they materialized back in the command center. Immediately, the two sprang apart and rolled behind opposite computer banks. Rogue did a quick reconnaissance and determined that neither enemy had yet reached them. A whispered conference with Quicksilver indicated that Malice and Colossus were incapacitated, perhaps permanently; it was a question she would take care of later.  
  
"Time to set up an ambush," Rogue mouthed. Scott nodded and concealed himself in the shadow of the massive terminal housing the main components that constituted Cerebro, while Rogue once again called on her fading reserves for one more jump to the ceiling and shrouded herself in the shadows atop a massive storage unit.  
  
They had barely reached their positions when the door exploded inward accompanied by an earth-shaking howl. Squinting her eyes against the dust of the blast, Rogue gradually perceived the massive form of Sabretooth, a smaller female form at his side.  
  
Without preamble, the woman darted to a terminal, muttering, "Bring down the house, why don't you?"  
  
"Gotcha in, didn't I, frail?" he snarled, stalking about and smashing equipment at random for good measure. Rogue suppressed a groan at the damage he wrought, stifling thoughts of repair and diminishing funds, not to mention Xavier's ire. A flicker of movement attracted her attention, and she chanced a slow turn of the head to peep out the door in time to see Logan, Storm, and Quicksilver secrete themselves on either side of the doorway  
  
In her earpiece, she heard Logan whisper, "Now what, boss?"  
  
Barely moving her lips, she returned near inaudibly, "Count of three. One, two, three -"  
  
A blaze of lightning shot into the room as Logan roared his entrance, and Cyclops sprang from his hiding place. Both intruders were caught flat-footed, but the female - Kitty - recovered quickly and somehow moved _though_ the solid wall next to her. In a moment, Quicksilver was after her, Rogue hot on his heels.  
  
As she ran, she reviewed the battle plan she had lifted from the teleporter - If attacked, Kitty was supposed to head for the long-abandoned Morlock tunnel entrance connected to the basement. Changing direction mid-stride, she called Quicksilver and informed him of her probable destination. He confirmed that she was indeed headed in that direction. Pushing all other thoughts aside, Rogue visualized the entrance to the tunnels and teleported one last time, popping back into existence directly in front of the woman.  
  
With a startled screech, the thief stopped dead in her tracks, and Rogue grabbed her face. For a moment, the girl struggled, but the absorption process quickly overwhelmed her. Just before she reached the point of death, Rogue dropped her to the floor and clutched at her head, writhing in pain.  
  
"Check in with the others," she growled through clenched teeth. Distantly, she heard Storm report, confirming that Sabretooth had been taken care of and was en route to the maximum security holding cell, accompanied by Logan and Scott. Then Quicksilver was steadying her as she sank to the ground.  
  
"My head...Too many people in here with me. Need t'get to sickbay...Where's Moira?" She tried to rise and failed, and Quicksilver scooped her up. She thought she saw Storm arrive and secure the unconscious woman before her own eyes rolled up in her head and she sank away into darkness.  
  
  
**GAMBIT  
  
**Having monitored the action from his front-row seat, as it were, Remy was prepared when she went into another collapse, but was nonetheless surprised at the setting he found himself in almost immediately. This time they were in the library of the mansion, a place he was not overly familiar with, but one that he knew she spent a lot of time in on rainy days. Her summons of him had also been surprising, a harsh yank from his hiding place into this creation of her mind.  
  
Rogue turned away from the windows and the night sky to face him slowly. Around her blew the gauzy curtains that hung from a simple brass rail above the window, and he paused mid-step, taken with the picture she presented. It was dark in the room except for the weak light of the crescent moon; backlit as she was, he could not immediately make out the expression on her face.   
  
They stood apart in that fashion for a long moment as the silence stretched. Finally, Remy moved to her. "Rogue, what we doin' here?"  
  
"Don't come closer." He stopped, alert to the tension in her voice.   
  
"Somethin' wrong?"  
  
She looked away, a grim smile barely visible in profile. "You might say that." Silence again, then, "What is real, Remy?"  
  
"Huh?" He had no idea where her mood was coming from or where it was going.  
  
"Was it real when I carried Magneto's child? Or when I was in love with Scott? Or that fight out there? What is real?" she asked again.  
  
A tiny gleam of insight sparked in his mind. He hadn't expected this uncertainty - mostly because of his ability to retain his sense of self throughout their whole ordeal. Rogue hadn't had that luxury.  
  
"What do you think?"   
  
Looking down, she revolved slowly and leaned on the windowsill, closing her eyes and welcoming the rush of air on her face. "I don't trust my thoughts anymore."  
  
"All right den - what do you feel?"  
  
She didn't reply. After a moment of indecision, Remy threw caution to the wind and moved up behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. The thin silk of her shirt warmed beneath his touch and he reveled in the closeness.  
  
Choosing his words with care, he told her, "I can' tell you what was real an' what wasn', but I think dat if you feel somethin' here," he thumped his chest, "den maybe what is physically dere and what isn't don' matter."  
  
She bobbed her head, acknowledging that she had heard, but not much else. Remy sighed and ran his hands lightly down her arms to catch her naked hands in his. With infinite care, he wrapped their arms around her, ready to let go if she made any protest. Meeting no resistance, he stepped in closer and pulled her back against his chest, leaning his chin on her shoulder.   
  
"Y'afraid again? Dat okay, I understan'. I jus' want t'be here. Don' shut me out - I was dere the whole time. I saw t'ings - I want to help you," he told her quietly.   
  
She rested limply in his arms, her breathing very slow, but made no move to disentangle herself. They stood, looking out onto the moon-dappled lawn of the mansion and its grounds, and Remy wondered idly why she had chosen this image and not the forest. Probably, it was the ultimate safe zone for her - and it had certainly served as a constant image in her journeys through her mind.   
  
"Rogue, you gon' try now? I'll be here, I can maybe show you t'ings to help you get back- but you gon' have t'leave dis place t'do it."   
  
"I'm so tired, I can't concentrate - I've been tryin' all day t'wake up, but I can't remember what to focus on...I don't think it's ever gonna end," she murmured thickly, her head lolling against his shoulder.   
  
"No, chere, y' can' sleep yet." He unclasped one of her hands and brought his to her forehead. "Let me try dis - maybe it give you a point t' hold onto, hein?"   
  
Closing his eyes, he mustered his rough telepathy and formed an image of her again, this time showing her strapped to the metal table, looking up into the mirrored surface above her. It was a harsh image, but he was beginning to fear that anything less would have no effect on her. Focusing, he transferred the image into her mind with all the grace of a bullet - a side effect of the untrained power, but one that he counted on for its very rawness.  
  
Suddenly, her body strained outward in muscle-wrenching tension, and a startled cry escaped her. He held her to him, riding it out as her panicked mind reached outward through its own web of realities towards the physical plane once more. Linked as they were, he felt his strength flowing into her, boosting her diminished reserves as they hurtled toward a point of light in the frightening conflagration that constituted her lives.  
  
"Hold on," he whispered between gritted teeth.  
  
Warping lines of energy laced through them, drawing them closer to their destination, pulling them with forces that stretched and twisted them into terrible contortions. Rogue screamed in agony as it tore her forward, snapping bones and tendons out of their proper alignments.  
  
"Rogue - listen t'me!" Remy shouted in her ear. "Your body not here! Believe dat! Listen t'me, girl. Look at me!"   
  
She looked around wildly, the pain ebbing and flowing as they hurtled onward. Remy wrenched her around to face him, and she saw that although his body was twisting into the same unimaginable shapes as hers was, he didn't seem to be suffering.   
  
"How are you doin' it?" she howled as her left leg folded up behind her head. She felt hands gripping her head, and then the image of her body on the table blazed across her mind again.   
  
"Concentrate on the picture. Dat the real you. Dat's yo' body. Move it. Move a finger." Remy's voice was harsh in her ear, the command ringing through her mind as well as in her hearing.  
  
"I - God!" she gasped, but clung to the image to distract herself. Straining, she flung her will out to the picture, demanding that a finger, a toe, anything - would twitch. To her shock, the body's entire hand flapped once against the restraint pinning it at the wrist.   
  
Opening her eyes, she stared up at Remy, aware suddenly that the agony had disappeared completely. His eyes were tightly closed, and she saw a red stream of energy emanating from his forehead. Feeling a warmth on her own brow, she reached up and realized that its endpoint terminated somewhere in her frontal lobe.   
  
Looking around, she saw that they stood in the center of the room that contained her body. In the far distance, she thought she saw a group of creatures huddling just outside of the light, but she turned away and observed the form on the table. As she drew nearer, her mind lurched, and her body, responding, fell over the prone individual.   
  
A familiar vortex of blue light manifested before her, but this time she was unafraid as it swallowed her up. "Take me back," she commanded it, and with a disorienting pulsation, she was shoved into the body. Immediately, she opened her eyes, ripping at the restraints as she had once before, so many lifetimes from then. At her first twitch, the metal bands flew off of their own accord, and she staggered upright, wrestling the horrible helmet from her head and hurling it aside.  
  
Pushing herself off the table, she careened out across the floor towards her alien imprisoners, but there was no one to confront. She was utterly alone. A door snapped up to her right, and she flew out of it, following a winding corridor for long minutes until it ended in another room. There stood Gambit, transfixed by a brightly glowing orb of silver energy that crackled and hissed as it hovered beneath his hands.   
  
"Remy!" she shouted as she slid to a stop next to him. No reaction. She threw her arms around him and tugged with all her might. After a minute of straining, she released him - she might as well have been trying to move a planet. The sphere continued to pop energy, and she moved closer, trying to see into it. To her horror, she saw Gambit within, pounding against an invisible barrier.  
  
Frantically, she pulled at him again, to no avail. "Remy, wake up! _This_ is real! Remy -" A thought occurred to her, and she trembled at the audacity of it. It was too sudden, too unreal -   
  
An image flashed in her head, a memory that was hers and yet wasn't: Nathan Grey, a troubled young man looking for a renegade from his own dimension, reaching inside of her mind for a moment to touch a point deep within her core and flip a kind of switch. Suddenly, she had understood the nature of her power to its fullest extent, and the way to control it.   
  
Now she reached deep inside of herself, down into the nucleus, the the bright white center that was the nexus of her own power. Exerting more constraint than she thought possible, she extended a tip of consciousness into the point and _pushed_. A tingling washed through her skin as the power retracted into the locus. Shaking, she raised her hand and turned it in the flickering light of the orb. It looked no different, but it felt very strange, as if a layer of gauze had been removed from her entire body - every little breath of moving air rippled through the nerves and sent an overload of sensation to her brain.  
  
"Believe it, girl. Believe it, cuz it's the only thing that'll save Remy. You got him into it - you get him out," she ordered herself.  
  
Wincing, she brought her fingers to Remy's cheek and waited for the dreaded flood of persona, but no transference began. Gaining courage, she laid her hand against his face, and when that resulted in no absorption, she realized that her gamble had played out. Summoning courage, she ducked under his outstretched arm, stood between him and the ball, and grasped his face between her hands.   
  
Distantly, she relished the unfamiliar feel of the stubble beneath her fingers, the silkiness of a tendril of hair at his temple, the warmth of his skin. Closing her eyes, she focused on his presence in front of her and took a deep breath, trying to erase the hazy memory of another time she had done this, and its disastrous aftermath. _Come on Sleeping Beauty - it's time to wake up. _Pushing aside her fears, she leaned in and brought her lips to his.  
  
His mouth was still and cold for a moment, so she pressed harder, demanding his body to respond. A burst of heat seared through her mind, and she heard a weak call.  
  
_Roguey?  
  
_Abruptly, he leaned into her as if pushed. Her arms wound around his neck as his came up around her, clutching her to him. The kiss lingered sweetly for a long moment before Rogue withdrew and opened her eyes. Above them, a light blinked for attention, and she nudged Remy until he, too, looked up.   
  
"I t'ink it wants t' lead us somewhere," he croaked. He looked down at her hands resting now on his shoulders and blinked in surprise to see them bare of their usual gloves. In fact, she was barely clothed at all, only a light shift of some indeterminable cloth that rippled in the drafty chamber.   
  
She followed his gaze and started guiltily to snatch her hands away, but he caught them in his own, marveling at the seeming miracle.  
  
"You member, chere?" She nodded shakily and managed a weak grin. He looked up again. "Time t'go den, I t'ink."  
  
The little light blinked in agreement with him, and Remy pulled her after him, beginning the chase. She stumbled along as best she could, exhaustion beginning to overwhelm her and making her clumsy. After a harrowing trek through the pitch dark pursuing their beacon, they ended up in a pool of light that illuminated Remy's prowler. Without questioning, he keyed the entry code and half-dragged, half-carried Rogue into the tiny fighter with him.   
  
As he fired up the engines, the darkness in front of him shimmered and outer space twinkled invitingly. Rushing through preflight, he spared enough time to make sure Rogue was securely strapped in before opening up the throttle and roaring out into space.   
  
Once free of the asteroid, he turned toward Earth and home. Around the asteroid, a wave of sparkling light rippled; then it accelerated away from the planet, elongated, and disappeared with a flash of light. Wide-eyed, Remy stared a long moment at the empty space it had filled before a sensor beeped, and he had to turn his attention to the business of charting a landing vector. At his side, Rogue slumped, her eyes slitted with pain.  
  
He spared a moment to touch her cheek, but she barely responded. It suddenly occurred to him to hit the emergency beacon keyed to the mansion as they plunged through atmosphere; and as he fled over Europe, the communications gear crackled to life, questions barraging him. Ignoring them, he locked in a course for the mansion and managed to engage the autopilot before the disorientation in his head overtook him.  



	6. At Last

**PART SIX  
  
Xavier Mansion  
Medical Unit**  
  
"She's crashing again! Prep the paddles!" Hank hollered to Jean. She rushed the crash cart over and squirted thick gel on the paddles.   
  
"Clear," she ordered, and everyone stepped back, hands in the air. Leaning over Rogue's prone form, she placed the paddles on the other woman's chest. A jolt of energy rocked through the body, and the welcome blip of a heartbeat returned. With a sigh of relief, Jean replaced the paddles on the cart and returned her attention to Rogue's writhing psyche.  
  
To one side stood Cable, his eyes closed, his face tense, straining to make contact with Rogue through the maelstrom of her unconscious mind. In a moment, Jean's familiar Phoenix form flared at his side on the astral plane. They looked in awe at the mad vortex gushing before them and exchanged a very concerned look.  
  
"I've never seen anything like it – even considering her Kree shields. This is – insane," Jean commented.  
  
"I'm surprised we were able to get in even this far. This is one tough lady," Nathan commented, prodding at a random image with his psimitar, probing for an entrance. Immediately a mental wall slammed down, shutting out the two telepaths.  
  
Jean wracked her brain in an attempt to find a new course of attack; obviously a direct approach was out of the question. "I wonder if it's a matter of trust?" she murmured.  
  
"Trust?"  
  
"Rogue's such a private person – a side-effect of her mutant factor, I assume. She has always had a firm grip on what she allows others to see, almost as a defense mechanism." Jean pondered this for a moment before continuing, "I suppose there's only one person she's ever let in behind these walls."  
  
"Gambit." Nathan considered. "I assume you're referring to his newly emerging powers?"  
  
"Yes. We know he has exhibited signs of rudimentary telepathy since his ordeal in Antarctica, and the time he spent in her mind – well, he might the expert telepath in this case, Nathan."   
  
Before them, the shield faded out and vanished, overwhelmed by the strength of the torrent within. Jean watched the play of images that occasionally flitted across the face of the whirling storm. The asteroid, a metal table, a baby She could not begin to piece together their relationship, but with the frequency they repeated themselves, she knew they had played an integral part in Rogue's trauma. Concentrating, she probed with a tendril, hoping to pick up even a glimmer of emotion from their patient. She caught a sense of overwhelming confusion, loneliness, and a desolate cry for a child – Rogue's child – before the Kree walls slammed down again, reducing her to mere "physical" sight.  
  
"Jean?"   
  
She blinked and opened her eyes, aware that Hank had been calling her. "Yes?"  
  
"I need to perform a full examination now that we have her stabilized – would you mind assisting me?"  
  
Cable opened his eyes and sighed. Suddenly he looked a little smaller, and very, very tired. "I'll go talk to Gambit." He moved slowly from the room, followed by Betsy and Kurt.  
  
Pulling around a privacy curtain, Hank turned to a small table and laid out a few instruments, fussing a bit unnecessarily with them. After allowing him a few moments of pointed silence, Jean gave up and asked, "What is it?"  
  
Hank looked up, surprised. Recalling himself, he gave first her, and then Rogue, a long look. Apparently reaching a decision, he pursed his lips and asked, "Jean, to your knowledge, Rogue has never been intimate with a man, correct?"  
  
Jean stared blankly at him. "No. Because of her absorption ability – and – " She stopped, wondering how much information she should reveal without Rogue's consent.  
  
"I only ask in a medical capacity," Hank reassured her.   
  
After a moment, Jean continued. "Frankly, I think there might have been a chance with Remy – when they were imprisoned Antarctica - but she was not in a state of mind to go that far. And since them, they've had to relearn how to trust each other. So, no – I don't think she has ever been able to reach that point."  
  
"I had so assumed, of course, given the unfortunate circumstances of her abilities. That makes the results of my initial scan so extraordinary." Hank padded lightly over to a computer screen, and Jean followed closely.  
  
"I thought you wanted to do a full examination now," she said.  
  
"Oh, I do. But I want you to see this first, to confirm that I am not losing my mind." He called up a results screen of the preliminary scan Cerebro had made of her body. Scrolling down through the sections of Rogue's anatomy, he paused at the notations on her abdominal region and read quickly until he found what he was looking for. Pointing a finger at it, he stepped aside to let Jean read it.  
  
"Oh, my" she breathed. "How is this possible? They were only gone for a few weeks, not months!"  
  
"But that isn't the disturbing part. Read on." He waited as her eyes flicked over the words and a crease gradually divided her forehead. Finishing, she lifted her eyes to meet his.  
  
"She's delivered a baby?"  
  
"Not exactly. I think at some point in her journey one of her incarnations did experience pregnancy and labor, and her body responded accordingly. It explains some of the muscle damage and strain, and yet the fact that she is still, physically, an innocent." Hank walked slowly back to the unconscious figure laying limply on the hospital bed and took Rogue's hand in both of his own.   
  
Jean joined him, a hand on his shoulder to comfort both of them. "She cries for the baby in her mind, not even fully aware of what it is she's looking for. From the little Remy was able to tell me before he passed out, it's an image that had haunted her through most of their time in the asteroid."  
  
They stood silently, listening to slow, rhythmic beat of Rogue's heart on the monitor. Finally, Hank gently lay down the hand he had been holding and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Wordlessly, Jean donned another pair, and they set to work on a full examination of their beleaguered friend.  
  
  
In another part of the mansion, Ororo sat beside the restless form of her old friend and wondered. He had fallen unconscious shortly after his battered skip-boat had landed on the mansion's grounds. Since then, he had slipped into a deep sleep. Now, it appeared the peace of sleep had left him to the ravages of nightmares.   
  
As he drifted, Ororo reached out and touched his forehead gently, and he seemed to ease in the comfort of contact. After running a preliminary scan on him, Jean had determined with Hank that Remy's unnatural sleep was merely the efforts of his mind to repair itself. As such, they had left instructions to let him wake naturally, and not before- an order Ororo was finding hard to keep. Agitated by her inability to do anything   
to soothe him, she sprang to her feet and paced.   
  
"Stormy, relax," a voice croaked out of nowhere, and her heart nearly stopped. Whirling around, she pinned her friend with an anxious glare.  
  
"How many times have I told you – " she began.  
  
"Don' call you dat. I know, I know – couldn't resist." Remy eased himself upright, rubbing his head. "Got a monstrous headache, chere – mind gettin' me an aspirin?"  
  
"Not at all. It is good to see you once again among the living," she told him, gliding swiftly into the attached bathroom to rummage for the medication. "You gave us a start popping out of nowhere!" she chided him as she poured a glass of water.  
  
"Not my fault," he protested. "I just wanted t' get home as quick as possible." He accepted the pills and glass gratefully and downed them immediately. She watched him, affection mixed with concern for his well-being.  
  
"How do you feel, Remy?" she asked, brushing a long-fingered hand across his forehead.  
  
He closed his eyes and took stock of the situation before answering, "I think everythin's where its s'posed to be. Migraine to end all migraines, but other den dat, I'll live."   
  
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he grabbed for his bathrobe on an adjacent chair and pulled it on as he stood. It took a second to regain his balance, but he managed to shuffle to the bathroom, calling, "Pardon, 'Ro. Nature calls."   
  
With a sigh, Storm turned her back on the closed door and looked out the bedroom window, still edgy. A throat cleared behind her, and she jumped. Twice in five minutes! This was ridiculous.  
  
"Sorry, Ororo. I didn't mean to startle you," Nathan excused himself as he strode silently into the room. "I felt Gambit wake up and I wanted to talk to him about Rogue's condition."  
  
Ororo frowned. "Are you certain that is wise? He has only just risen from the ordeal himself -"  
  
They were interrupted by an explosive crash from the bathroom followed by a ringing curse as Remy plowed back through the door into the room, wild-eyed. "Rogue - Where is she? She all right?"  
  
"Remy, calm yourself before you do more injury. She is resting, stabilized, in the medical bay. Hank is with her, and Jean," Ororo soothed. The red-eyed man ran a hand through his hair and took a few deep breaths. Knees wobbly, he sank back down on the edge of his bed. Cable stood chair next to the bed and Storm sat on his other side, close enough to be comforting, but not touching him.   
  
"Rogue's mind is - well, fragmented is the simplest way of saying it. She needs a telepath to repair it, but neither Jean nor I can get through her Kree shielding. We thought you might be able to help us on that." Nathan regarded the former thief with forced calm, waiting for him to put two and two together.  
  
Remy blinked in confusion until he realized what Cable was after. Shaking his head, he nixed the idea. "Oh, no - it too dangerous. I got no control over it! I might hurt her even more!"  
  
_Let me show you.  
  
_"I hate it when you do dat," he muttered. Grumbling, he leaned forward with his head in his hands. "If I scramble her brains, it's yo' fault."  
  
A rare grin flashed across Nathan's face. _Have a little faith, Gambit. You have the basics of control down, and Jean and I can help you fine-tune it once we go in.  
  
_"You and Rogue have shared a deep rapport," he continued, switching to the spoken word for Ororo's benefit. "It's given you a connection that might give us a doorway inside - or at least allow Jean and I to piggyback in through your link. Jean's also suggested that it may boil down to a matter of Rogue's trust - something you've got that the rest of us don't, necessarily. On this level."  
  
"When do we start?" Remy asked, resigned.  
  
Nathan reached out a gentle probe. "You seem healed enough. As soon as you're ready."  
  
Standing again, Remy headed for his bureau, surges of adrenaline chasing away the last bit of grogginess. "Be out in a minute."  
  
  
**ROGUE  
  
**She blundered through a wind-swept desert, arms outstretched, calling until her throat was raw and she could barely hear herself over the storm.  
  
"Charles! Charles, baby, where are you?" No reply. "Erik, I can't find him, I can't find Charles, " she croaked behind her, but no rumbling tenor voice answered her. Whipping around confirmed her fears: Erik had disappeared, just like all of the others. Except Charles. She could feel him out there, ahead somewhere, and he was alone and frightened.  
  
Breaking into a run, she fought against the swirling sand, gaining ground inch by inch. "Charles, I'm comin'! Mama's comin', baby!"  
  
She had to hurry - something bad was about to happen. Cursing wildly, she pushed onward, trying to see the child. Suddenly the sky lit with an unholy glare that blazed across the night sky. It was too late.  
  
"No!" She strained to rise from the ground, but a great shockwave slammed her back into the sand. A searing wall of heat rolled toward her, and the last thing she saw before darkness took her was the backlit, burning silhouette of a child.  
  
"Not my baby -" she whimpered as the flames engulfed her...  
  
  
**Xavier Mansion Medical Unit**  
  
Three telepaths of varying degree stood around Rogue's bed in the medical unit. At her head - Remy; Jean held one of the prone woman's hands, and Nathan the other.   
  
"Ready?" Jean asked Remy.  
  
"No, but here we go." Simultaneously, they projected themselves into the astral plane, and Rogue's tangled psyche roared before them.   
  
Remy looked into the storm of images before them, recognizing nearly everything he saw. Tentatively, he reached out a finger and touched the "surface" of a vision. It gave gently beneath his finger, allowing it to penetrate. He looked over his shoulder at his companions.  
  
Suddenly, Jean and Cable were not only there next to him, but also inside of his head - vague, unobtrusive presences that reassured him. _Go ahead,_ he heard Jean prompt gently, and he wasn't sure if she had spoken or thought it.   
  
Taking a deep breath, he cleared his mind of everything save one thought - Rogue. A step forward into the vision, another. There was token resistance, and then the strange dream surface parted and formed a doorway around him. He moved through, and it closed almost instantaneously behind him.  
  
He could still feel Jean and Nathan with him, watching carefully, ready to guide, and their confidence in him relaxed him slightly. Here, inside, he got the impression of red shadows and intense bewilderment. After a moment of scanning, he located its source and progressed farther into the eye of the storm. Suddenly, he saw her.  
  
She lay on one side, her right arm outstretched as if she had been reaching for something in her sleep. With a thought, he was at her side and leaning over her. Her eyes were open but unseeing, and her chest rose and fell slowly. Crouching near her, he called her name softly. A slight movement of the head, a twitch in one smooth cheek indicated that she had heard him.   
  
_Try to reach her_, a thread of thought came from Nathan. Closing his eyes, he reached out as gently as he could toward the mind he sensed in the shadowed body.   
  
_Rogue? C'mon p'tite, talk t'me.  
  
_At first, there was nothing - then, faintly, _Remy?  
  
De one an' only.   
  
I'm so... my head hurts. When are we?  
  
Now. Home. You got us off dat floating pebble, remember?  
  
_There was a pause as she tried to digest that. No, _I - I don't remember. Everything's so hazy...  
  
Rogue -_ he felt her drift away and called her back to him. _Rogue, stay wit' me. I got some people who want t' help you, but you got t' trust me. You got t' let dem in, ok?  
  
_Immediately a flood of fear washed over her, and the connection weakened fractionally. _No! No more people in my head! What ...  
  
No, no - it's Jean and Nate. the good guys. _He felt her flail about in confusion and hurried to send soothing thoughts. _Try to remember. I show you. _  
  
Concentrating, he sent her a picture of Jean from a recent picnic, relaxed in a T-shirt and shorts, completely unthreatening. Following that was an image of Nathan in atypical casual wear, tossing a football to Hank McCoy. Familiar, comforting images. Through their tenuous link, he detected an ease of tension.  
  
_I think - but Jean's dead , isn't she?   
  
Not here. Not now. And she wants to help stop the confusion. _He sent her a soft caress. _I'll be here the whole time.   
  
All right -   
  
_Remy linked back to the waiting Jean and Nathan, telling them, _You gotta be real careful - gentle. She's frightened.  
  
We know,_ Jean sent back. Using Remy as a conduit, the two telepaths painstakingly introduced themselves to Rogue.  
  
_Rogue? Honey, it's Jeannie. I'd like to touch your mind; it won't hurt, all right?  
  
_There was a pregnant pause; then Rogue acquiesced in a trembling mental voice. Remy felt Jean move through his mind to Rogue's as softly as a breeze, probing her here and there, assessing damage as inconspicuously as possible. As she worked, Nathan conversed gently with his frightened teammate, allaying her fears and distracting her from Jean's work.   
  
At last Jean and Nathan withdrew with assurances to Rogue that they would soon return. She seemed calmer now, a little more centered and aware of herself. Remy kept her talking about safe, neutral things as he lent half a mind to the hurried conversation between Phoenix and Cable.   
  
There was simply no way Rogue would ever be able to function with all of the sensory input crammed into her brain. Her time-sense had been thoroughly damaged, and she could not perceive the differences between the images in her mind and those before her physical eyes. Without some kind of pressure release, her mind would overload and shut down permanently - and time was swiftly running out. After a long moment of reflection, Nathan suggested siphoning off the memories entirely; downloading them, as it were, into Cerebro for further study.   
  
Remy broke off from his conversation, telling Rogue that he would be right back, and shot a tight beam of communication at the two.   
  
_Wait! You can't erase everythin' - In the last place, Rogue was able t' control her powers. You can't take dat chance away from her!  
  
_They stopped, astonished. _What do you mean? _Nathan asked him sharply.  
  
_The - the alien - One o' dem made contact wit me t' get her outta the asteroid in the first place. He said dat the - experiment,_ he spat the word, _- all the things she was experiencin' were based on real mem'ries. Not gonna get into all dat right now, but maybe it mean she got the knowledge somewhere inside o' her to be able to turn her abilities on and off. You gotta preserve dat.  
  
This is getting complicated. How the hell are we going to be able to determine what to remove and what to keep?_ Nathan paced in frustration.  
  
Suddenly the plane warped, and Remy snapped his attention back to Rogue. Her limp form had vanished, but he could feel her mind screaming wordlessly, searching for something. Desperately, all three channeled their energy together through Remy to reach her. They touched a raw, open wound. Around them swirled images of the baby, Charles Lensherr, as Rogue _remembered._ A high keening pierced them, surrounding them in sorrow as she grieved for the lost child.  
  
Without hesitating, Remy threw himself into her mind, projecting all the love he could summon into her. She clutched at him, corporeal once more, wild with anger and pain.   
  
_My baby's gone, Remy! Dead -  
  
_He held her close, mind and "body", murmuring in compassion and understanding. In another tightly shielded message, he fairly commanded Jean and Nathan to eradicate any images of the apocalyptic world. They readily agreed, and Jean extended a cautious thread to Rogue.  
  
_Honey, I'm going to ease some of the pain, all right? I just want you to relax.  
  
_Rogue gave no sign of hearing her, but her mind did not resist as Jean once more traveled through Remy, this time gathering up images and funneling them back through Nathan, who had connected himself to Cerebro. As the horrors of her apocalypse trickled out, the storm of anguish ebbed and Rogue lifted her head weakly. Remy hushed her and asked her to close her eyes as Jean moved around.  
  
_Can you make the images fade, like a dream? It's the baby's Age dat's the most disturbing. Do you see the part about her control yet?_ he asked Jean privately.  
  
_Yes. I think I found it, and I want to activate this information through Rogue. Is she up to it?  
  
Rogue?  
  
_Her head lolled on his shoulder, but she managed to look up. _Yeah?  
  
Jeanne gonna tap into something - what you remember 'bout your powers?  
  
_She scrunched up her face as she looked up at him. _I touch people, they get into my head. They got mutant powers, I absorb 'em for awhile.  
  
What else?  
  
I kinda remember somethin' about a switch -  
  
Dat what I talkin' about. Jeanne gonna hit it, ok?  
  
_With a nod of consent, they waited as Jean touched the memory and studied it. After a minute of perusal she brought it to the front of Rogue's mind. _Rogue, do you remember how to do this?  
  
I - think -  
  
I want you to reach deep down, and try to remember how to do this, do you understand?  
  
Yeah - I - _Remy felt Rogue strain and push in her mind. They both felt an odd snap run through her system, and then she opened her eyes in awe. _I feel so strange -  
  
Rogue, I'm going to imprint you with this. I don't want you to lose this memory - it'll feel like a hot flash of light, and then it will be over. _A moment later it was done, and Jean finished up the "housecleaning". With a gentle mental hug of affection to Rogue, she disengaged and withdrew, leaving the two of them alone.   
  
Remy looked around. The angry scarlet of the plane had transmuted into a serene blue-grey, and the spinning knot that had afflicted Rogue's mind had been skillfully dissolved by Jean's careful ministrations. At the very edges of the plane he could see scattered remnants of the images, but they were hazy and dreamlike, not stark and overpowering.  
  
Rising, he drew her up with him. _Sleep, love, _he told her, and brushed his lips against her forehead. _I be dere when you wake. _  
  
With a sleepy nod, she agreed, her astral form fading and dispersing. As he withdrew, he felt her exhausted mind finally sink into a deep, healing, dreamless sleep.  
  
  
**Xavier Mansion  
Three days later  
  
**Rogue whimpered and thrashed weakly at the sheets that twisted around her. With a start, Remy woke and sat upright in the chair next to the bed, reaching out a gloved hand to touch her shoulder. At once, she calmed and settled more deeply into sleep.   
  
Jean had popped in earlier to monitor Rogue, again piggybacking in on Remy's telepathy. After checking the healing process, which was progressing nicely, she had turned to the question of power control. With a pleased smile, she had opened her eyes and told Remy, "Something's different in her mind. There's an openness she's never exhibited before - with time and training, I think she may truly be able to control it now. How did you find out about it?"  
  
Dredging through his own wash of confusing memories, he managed to recall the conversation between Rogue and Logan about Nate Grey and recounted it as best he could. She listened intently, and then poked about a bit more before pronouncing Rogue's manipulation to probably be a bit rough, but light-years ahead of where she had been. For safety reasons, though, Jean warned that the usual precautions of no skin contact be maintained until she woke.   
  
He hated to do it, he wanted so much to be able to touch her, but common sense ruled out in the end. It was enough to be near her for now.   
  
"Baby....where... have to remember..." she murmured, and Remy's stomach clenched in sympathy. The most recurrent of her dreams revolved around the baby, and it was the one thing he couldn't ease away. Even though Jean had removed most traces of that entire Age, Rogue could not release the memory of the child. It was firmly entrenched in her heart; but Jean assured him that when she woke, she would have no memory of the dream.  
  
_Ah, chere, if I could take dis pain away, I would. Nothin' hurts you more den thinkin' of d'enfant. _He squeezed her hand gently. _But it's all changed now, Rogue - maybe one day you have a dozen kids, maybe we -_   
  
He cut off the thought. It was far too soon to entertain such dangerous ideas; he would not do it, for her sake - and for his.   
  
"Remy?" a husky voice asked. Remy shook his head and looked over. Rogue opened her eyes and looked at him with a vaguely sad, if clear gaze.   
  
"Hey p'tite," he said quietly. "How you feelin'?" Reaching out, he moved a strand of hair off her forehead.  
  
She exhaled deeply and tilted her head to look out the window behind him. "Like I've been knocked down and dragged cross-country by a Mack truck. How bout you?"  
  
He barked a laugh. "Been better, chere. Brain's a little scrambled - otherwise, comme ci, comme ca." Leaning forward a little, he asked, "Are you on or off?"  
  
She cocked her head at him in confusion until she remembered; with an internal wrench, she damped her powers. As a crooked smile crossed her face, she told him, "I think it's safe. Just be careful."  
  
With a little trepidation, he took off his gloves and laid them aside, maintaining eye contact with her the entire time. Cautiously, he laid a hand across her forehead, and she turned slightly into the contact, smiling faintly. A thrill tingled through his fingertips up through his body, and his eyes widened as he realized that for one of the few times in her life, she could safely reach out to someone else.  
  
"How's the head?" he hedged, to cover the welter of uncharacteristic emotions she evoked in him.  
  
"Tired. Weird. Emptier than it's been for awhile, I guess. Everything's a little hazy."  
  
"But you know where you are, right?" he asked anxiously.  
  
She turned her head on the pillow, taking in her familiar bedroom, the walls a light blue, the simple wooden furniture, her favorite teddy bear nestled near her head. With a shuddering sigh, she nodded.  
  
"Here. In my room at the mansion. It never looked right anywhere else - I know that much."  
  
She ran a hand through her hair, fingering her witch-streak, starting to shake a little. "I know where I am - I can't - " Her hands fluttered weakly as she tried to give voice to her state of mind and failed.   
  
Remy found that he could not look at her, and shifted his gaze out the window, taking in the rolling lawns that sloped down to the small stream that crossed the property. In the distance, the last of the sunlight glinted on the water. His mind curiously blank, he stood statue-like as the sun sank beyond the horizon. He heard a soft rustling behind him and he imagined Rogue pushing aside the light bedclothes. A moment later, he sensed her presence at his side. A hand slid into his, and he looked over at her, startled. She, too, was looking out over the dusky horizon.  
  
"Something's shifted. You feel it, too, don't you?" she asked quietly. Silently, he nodded his agreement. "I see flashes of different worlds - it's like trying to grasp at blades of grass that the wind is already tugging out of my fingers. I know Jean and Nate were trying to prevent an overload, but I also know things are missing. A lot of things."  
  
Remy closed his eyes, a wave of regret washing through him. "Dat was prob'ly my fault."  
  
"I don't blame you or anyone else. You saved me, Rem." She leaned against him, her lackluster strength already draining. "I'm sorry," she finally said.   
  
He drew her around in front of him. "We beyond the need to apologize, Rogue. We been holdin' back for no good reason except dat we were both afraid. After goin' through dis, we got nothin' to be afraid of." She nodded dully, not really listening. To get her attention, he put his hands on either side of her face and gently but firmly forced her gaze upward.  
  
"One day at a time. We just need t'go one day, one step, one breath at a time. And forgive each other. Forgive ourselves."  
  
Rogue studied him silently for a long while as the shadows lengthened on the floor. He gazed back at her, waiting with uncertainty for her reaction. At last, she answered him in a low voice. "I can accept that on one condition, Remy. I need to be sure of this one thing and know that you won't take it away from me -"  
  
Leaning his forehead against hers, he stopped her lips with a finger. "Wait. Let me say one more thing. Please." He paused, collecting his thoughts. "I figured it out."  
  
A small line creased her forehead as she tried to follow him, but she didn't interrupt.  
  
"You know I love you - you've always known - but dat ain't always enough. We both suffered a lot because of it. I been foolin' myself - tryin' not to recognize that you as important to me as you are, because I'm afraid. Of hurtin' you, of - hurtin' m'self, I guess. But dat's just stupid, chere, and I finally got it. And now I gotta convince you not to give up on me. Us."  
  
"Oh Remy..." She trailed off, swaying slightly with fatigue. "I never gave up on you," she told him finally. "But you need to trust in me. Completely. And you gotta show it, b'cause I can be a little obtuse sometimes."  
  
Cocking a rueful grin, she started to say something else when her knees buckled, and she sank into him. He caught her easily and sat her carefully on the edge of the bed. She tilted her head back and looked straight in the eyes.  
  
"No more runnin' away?" He shook his head. "No more hidin' things from each other?" He agreed with another nod, and she reached out trembling hands and grasped his. "Then hold me tight, Rem, and don't ever let me go."  
  
Without another word, he pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her tightly as sudden tears seeped from her eyes. All of the rage, the helplessness, and the pain of her ordeal washed out of her in one great flood. He rocked her shuddering form gently, silently, waiting for the grief to subside. As the room darkened with full night, she grew quiet and drowsy again.   
  
He relaxed his arms, listening as her breathing evened out and deepened. He inhaled the fresh, clean scent of her hair, sensed her in his mind, felt her along his body. A deep sense of calm began in his chest and flowed outward, through his body and into hers.   
  
When he felt Rogue drift off again, Remy laid her gently back on the bed and drew up a blanket. Hooking a foot under the chair's rung, he drew it close to the bed and sat down in it again. She sighed and reached out a hand to him; he caught it and gripped it lightly.   
  
"Sleep chere. I be dere when you wake," he murmured.   
  
"You always are. Thank you -" and she was asleep, healing. For the first time in a long time, he felt at peace with himself and her - that maybe he was healing too.   
  
A small smile flitted across his lips before he, too, slept.  
  


  
_FIN_


End file.
